Shelly A - can you email me or post more about your Holiday Housewalk and Spa Day fundraisers. Our school seems to use the same functions and could use some new ideas this year!
Thanks,
S.Koehn This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
You definitely need a separate committee to dedicate themselves to just this project.We've been filing for grants, but to no avail. It seems as though every time we send out a batch a catastrophe that takes precedence over a playground (things like the tsunami, Katarina), gives people and companies other places to spend their donation monies!
You could still try for grants--we had success get a fair amount from our county ($35,000)from their efforts to preserve open space in our county for recreational use.
Lisa--I'm JEALOUS!!! We've been working on our $140,000 project for about a year and a half now--with NO support from our principal and lip-service support from our BOE. (Yes, it defies reason, but we're not discussing reasonable people here [img]tongue.gif[/img] ) We've managed to about $40,000 on our own (biggest fundraiser to date was a Tricky Tray (prize/basket raffle) which netted $12,000.
Our school just finished putting some elementary playground equipment up. The way we financed our project was to talk with the Director of School facilities and find out which company held the State contract for playground equipment. It helps defrey the cost a little. We also did well with a pie and cookie dough sale, chocolate rabbits, Scholastic book sale, mile of quarters and pancake breakfast.
Take a look in the PTO Today card pack - sent to all schools. There are a couple of playground companies in there that might be worth contacting. I know one of them is very keen to find a site for there new products - but I don't want to advertise! email me if you want more details This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Just wanted to let you know we had a ribbon cutting for our new playround yesterday. The kids are thrilled and so are the parents. Before the ribbon cutting, I identified a piece of equipment that was paid for by boxtops. Then I showed them the new swings and told them that was paid for by our scrip program. I went through each piece of new equipment and explained how each of our fundraisers contributed to the new playground. Plus, I pointed out that as our students returned to the classroom we had raised enough $$$ to give the school/teachers $55,000 to purchase new textbooks, curriculum supplies etc. It was a very visual way of explaining that the PTO fundraising directly affects their children. People were amazed to learn that we collected enough boxtops to buy a piece of playground equipment. They just see the 10 cents, but seeing the equipment helped them understand how each of those little boxtops makes a difference.
It was a great day and we received very positive feedback.
Well, we're at a standstill with our second phase of our playground. The committee picked a unit that has 9 stations and only 1 of them is ADA acceptable. So now we have to rethink our options.
For help, try Lowes and Homedepot. They have grants available, but are hard to get. It's worth a try, the worst thing they can say is no and we've all heard that plenty of times before.
What about having businesses donating money and the PTO putting up a sign board saying donated by
. I'm at a lost for any other ideas at this point.
