I just don't see how any schools PTO or H&S Club or PTA can function with out any money! We are in California and we are a low income school with 740 students. We kick off the year with a Cookie Dough/christmas wrap fundraiser and that usually brings a profit of around $15,000 to set our budget for the year. We give our Teachers $8.50 per student for fieldtrip money and $15.00 per child for supplies. The Teachers must turn in thier receipts to get reimbursed by our Treasurer. She cuts checks once a week. The Teachers can use their supply money for fieldtrips, but not the other way around. This way we encourage fieldtrips. We then will have a bookfair in which we take book instead of money so we can fill up our Library and the Teachers classroom Library. Our Teachers make wish list that we send home every quarter and keep posted in our multi purpose room. When an item is purchased, the teacher cross's it off the list and adds a new item. This works very well. In December we have the Reindeer Lane gift shop and a pancake breakfast. We get the local resturants to donate as much as possible, then purchase the rest from the school cafeteria. Our major fundraiser is in Feb. with a walk-a-thon. We get local companies to donate $200-$400 per company for advertizing on our school spirit shirts for the event. A local Bounce house company donates the Bounce Houses for free advertizement and we then BBQ during the event and have a silent auction and basket raffle. It makes a good deal of money. We then appriciate our Teachers during Teacher appriciation by feeding then a pot luck with a theme. Parents donate food per grade level. For example Kinder is in charge of drinks, first grade will get casseroles, second grade - salads.... It just takes organization! Don't sell your school short, just look for new ideas!

We also are a school with very low budget, about $1000. and extremely low parent support. My children attend this school on temporary transfer year to year basis now as we have moved across town and in another district. We live so close to the school they SHOULD attend, that I can look out my kitchen window and into a classroom. When the weather is nice and windows are open, I can hear the teacher instructing the students. Yet, I choose to drive my children across town to this other school because the teachers are WONDERFUL!!!!! I get so frustrated that the parents of our school to me, seem ungreatful! I volunteered so much last year that the principal said I belonged on the school payroll because I was ALWAYS at school. I do this because I appreciate the teachers and realize that any time I can give, the students benefit from. I would LOVE to find an easy fundraiser that the parents would support and the PTO could make some money so we can do more for our teachers. I love the idea of giving each teacher $ at the beginning of the school year for any supplies they may need.

We had a chili supper we held in conjunction with the fall festival. Made little money due to food being purchased instead of donated. None of the parents wanted to ask businesses for donations. We held the Christmas Shop, which we keep as a service to the kids and not a fundraiser. We usually only profit about $200 - $300. We host a free admission movie night and charge $1. for soda and popcorn. Ended up MAYBE breaking even because the movie license was higher last year. This is all we do. I would love to sell t-shirts, as the last school t-shirts were given to the students in 2002 out of a school fund. I tried to raise money during the bookfair by asking parents to donate .50-1.00 for their childs classroom teacher and in exchange the class with the highest amount raised, the students would recieve and ice cream party. I think there were only two classrooms that made approximately $20 and most teachers had were a few dollars and some collected none. I felt horrible for these teachers. One year prior to teacher appreciation I asked parents to donate what they could afford for a gift for their child's teacher for teacher appreciation week. We have approximately 45 teachers and aide's. We only collected approximately $50 in donations, this being with a grandparent who made a $25 donation for their grandchilds teacher. I ended up purchasing cheap clay flower pots from Home Depot and plants from Wal-Mart out of the donated money and my own money and gave these as gifts. I spent and entire evening potting the plants on my front porch.

During teacher appreciation week we usually have a dinner for the teachers and staff (combined). We ususally purchase the food and the cafeteria cooks it. We usually purchase each teacher a small gift. Last year we had a change in plans and we found a local restaruant who only charged us $1.85 per teacher for glazed chicken breast, green beans, salad, baked potato. Ok, I admit that my mother-in-law works there and got this set up, and she donated her time in the restaurant kitchen to fix this. My brother-in-law makes homemade rolls that are out of this world and he donated those. Cakes and pies were donated by the parents of the PTO. Needless to say we did the food for $111. for approximately 60 people, we invited the superintendent and assistant superintendent also. We rented the local Nutrition Center as the teachers love getting out of the school setting at a cost of $50. Flowers for the tables were purchased by the principal and the candles were what I have used every year. Having saved so much money on the food, we were able to make a donation of $300 to the school library.

Our school has only had a PTO since 2001 and none before that because their was never any support. The old principal named me president in 2001 and have had this position ever since. In 2001 we had a president, vice president, secretary and treasurer. Eventually the vice president stopped showing up, the secretary was a school teacher who accepted a position with the administration in a non-teaching role away from our building. These positions were never re-placed. Last year we lost our treasurer due to her son moving on to Middle School. This will be our principals third year, and last year we had a PTO leader, which I was appointed and she took over the checkbook, which is ok. We have no "by-laws". The PTO dwindles down every year. I do not even know for sure if the principal will have a PTO this year. I am going ahead and planning as though we will until I hear otherwise. We have a PTO website on the school web-site, however, it stated "under construction". I am going to ask if I can come in monthly and update it with the PTO information. I have printed up the teacher surveys the parent sign-up forms and the welcome letter. We have never used these before.

I wish the parents would get more invoved! Even though I have gotten some good ideas on here, I would really appreciate any ideas on fundraisers or events your schools hold that you make money off of.

Any ideas or suggestions would also be welcome!

i think you have the right idea. we are challenged as well with a portion of our school population low income (some are homeless, some are in foster care). we try to focus on the kids most of the time. try making a nominal donation to the classroom teachers ($50.00 each for supplies, etc). Consider working with your local bank and other organizations to get school supplies for needy children and storing them at the school you can even give them to the teachers and have them give them out to children as needed.

last year, whatever programs we had, we set aside money for our neediest students. for example, if your school hosts a book fair and there are students who cannot afford extra money for the book fair, work with your school principal to identify those kids and give them (discreetly of course) a gift certificate to be used at the fair. i think your teachers, other parents and your principal will apprciate your pta/pto focusing on your neediest students.

good luck...

You could compromise and do a spirit event with a raffle on the side. Or solicit local businesses for donations. That way you can still raise some money while focusing on raising morale. There are other fundraisers out there that don't cost anything - box tops, recycling programs, etc. They can actually help drum up spirit too! Have a contest for the class that brings in the most box tops - give them a pizza party.

hey! Our meeting in March isn't until the 20th, so we do it early. We even do a birthday cake that says Happy Almost Birthday. We have a lot of fun painting red noses and whiskers on all the kids and serving wierd colored snacks.

GaMom - Just wanted to point out that
Dr. Seuss's birthday is March 2nd. We do all kinds of fun things the whole week including having "green eggs and ham." [img]smile.gif[/img] The kids love it!

Deb