Our school has a summer reading program, the children that completed the reading get a party. This year I was in charge of the party, I went to different local business and ask for donations. I got movie passes,zoo passes, ferris wheel passes, free icecream ,Wal-Mart donated 50.00, a book store donated some books, a print shop donated special made stickers and spilt the cost of happy meals with MCDonalds and another grocery store donated 25.00. I did the party for 80 children, it cost the school nothing. The kids were happy with the prizes they got (each kid got 1 prize, a happy meal and a ice cream gift card) Most business are happy to donate something to the kids, especialy if mom and dad have to buy a pass for themselves or for a sibling.

Also, if you have the blessing of the administration, you could do some free rewards. For Accelerated Reader we have some prizes like like a week of first-in-line lunch passes (entitles bearer to go to front of lunch line), free popcorn coupons (for our popcorn days), free skating party passes.

We also give out gel pens, and more expensive items like t-shirts, books (coordinator buys $1 books at Scholastic warehouse sale), lunch with principal.

Thank you for all the wonderful ideas! I'm going to take these to our meeting tonight.

I can tell you from experience(VAST experience) that finding non-food related incentives can be difficult. It seems, in our area at least, that the great majority of businesses who support reading incentive programs are restaurants. However, here are some other options I'm working for our program:
Can you get a local skating, theatre, or arcade business to donate admission or even a party for all the kids who achieve their goals?

Spirit type items-pencils, folders, bracelets, etc. with the school logo.

I like the book fair voucher idea too- might use that one for our reading program.

Do you do bookfairs? If you do, how about some sort of voucher towards books at the fair?

Try your local bookstore and see if they would donate books. Or maybe try to get a local business to sponsor each semester by agreeing to buy a book (set a resonable price like $5 or under) for each student who acheives that goal.

Good luck, I really like the idea and plan to pass it onto our teachers!