I signed our school up for the cartrige recycling yesterday. I am going to go to some local busineses today and see if they will donate their used cartriges. Do any of you ever feel you are just obsessed? My Principal wants me to run (most likely unapposed) in the fall because I am the kind of person who doesn't do things halfway but with all I've done over the summer I feel like maybe I'm doing to much without board approval, but our actual board missed over half our PTO meetings last year! I dont even know who was supposed to be our treasurer or secretary. I found PTO bylaws, wrote a PTO handbook and wrote our first newsletter. Am I not going to have enough things for other parents to do next year? I don't want to start off so far behind that next year is a waste too!

our school is also in a small town with very few local businesses and they get hit up all the time. we started a annual raffle fundraiser with a unique for our area twist - we call it an energy raffle and it started out just a cord of wood but now we have added oil and propane which we have been able to get the local suppliers to donate. heating is a big expense in the winter and we try to have it in january, our coldest month when fuel cost will be high and supply lessening. we also got a pro baseball team to donate a jersey for the prize to the kid selling the most tickets -$4000. profit and little cost to us just tickets/printing.

we also started collecting ink cartridges from community businesses - no cost to them or us and a tax write off for them. we make aprox. $40-50 a month with probably 4 diligent businesses, the best being our local hospital(very small 20 beds)
effort is minimal as well with monthly pick up and packing.

and the last idea is a book fair, we've only one bookstore in town and the selection is limited so this usually brings in over $800 dollars in the fall and the spring.

good luck with your fundraising efforts.
lisa [img]smile.gif[/img]

Thanks for the ideas! Our skating rink is going out of business but maybe we can do something with the bowling alley. I will talk to them next week. I will check out the recycling right now. Thanks Agian!

We are lucky enough to be in an area with lots of large companies, the flip side not many of us are keen on having Coors (beer) name on a huge sign for school events.

Our PTO is tired of selling stuff too and we have made it a point to find ways to raise funds other ways. Our best fundrasier is (I know here I go again ) skate parties we are able to recieve $1.25 per skater ($3.75 to skate). We have a party about every other month on a Thursday when we have Friday off and average $250- 300 a party. It's not thousands but a steady income.
There are also so many recycle programs that are listed in the Fundraising post right on this site! Worth a look!
We also do what is called a "No-Work" fundraiser. Honestly, I'm not really fond of asking our hard working parents for money straight up BUT we do alright making $800 and up. I know not another HUGE money maker but it's cash! On this fundrasier though, you know who are our biggest contributors are? Community members our parents work with and grandparents. Yeap. Gotta love Grandma and Grandpa!

Oh yeah, our school sells shirts with the school logo on them and makes 10% off our purchase. An average shirt is $10 but that is for a polo shirt as we have a uniform. They do average $500 or so! Not too bad! Also the high school sponsors a dress down day, for $1 the kids can wear jeans etc on Friday, Even the Teachers participate! This has been huge! With 1200 students and 100 teachers and staff the first dress down pulled in $1000!!! (Yeah we are wishing we thought of it!)

As you can see where there is a will (or a strong desire NOT to sell door to door) there is cash to be made!!

We are a small blue collar oilfield town. Our schools in the wealthier part of town all have busines owners as parents and they sponsor the schools exclusively. I am having a hard time because our teachers don't want the kids to sell for fundraisers, parents don't have time or money and every time a new busines comes to town the other schools seem to have ties to them before they are even close to opening and they are immediatly spoken for. I am at a loss trying to restart a dead PTO! How do you make money to support your school with little or no monies available? We even plan on selling T-Shirts as a fundraiser in the fall but everone (exept me) thinks we should sell them practicaly for cost! Where are the funds if we do it this way? I'm sorry I guess I am just being gripey! Thank You for responding!!

Are you talking about sponsorship where a company has a definite, longterm, exclusive tie to your school?

I don't know about other areas, but the old "Adopt a School" concept doesn't seem to exist at our school. We live in the suburb of a large city. Any business we approach would would literally have at least a half dozen other elementary schools very close by. So they tend not to align themselves with one school exclusively.

It takes beating the bushes, but area businesses do donate items for Spring fling and Teacher Appreciation. A few, especially a couple on our same street, are pretty good for ongoing help. For instance, there's a small company down the street that keeps us supplied with helium for free (for balloons). Then again, how much do we use - one or two tanks a year?

We feel we do get help for individual events, but not the long term "sponsorships" I remember from groing up in a small town.