I was a long time principal and even though we were one of the top fundraising schools in the country (almost $200,000 in the magazine drive in a low socio-economic area), I didn't want to send my students out selling any longer.

I woke up in the middle of the night and realized that once digital cameras came out, we no longer needed the photography company to come in and take all the money.

The first year, I used volunteer parents who were amateur phototgraphers. Remember who the outside company used? They hired minimum wage people two weeks earlier and came in and took pictures that the parents hated.

When we did it, we took them outside and made them all look like "senior portraits." It was fabulous. We made them more affordable but it was a fundraiser without asking teachers or students to do anything! We sold more than 90% of the parents.

Now Picateers.com does all the work for us. We just take the photos and they make personalized order proofs, collect all the money, do all the printing, and we make as much as we want. It's a no brainer.

We will never again ask kids to sell cookies or junk when we can do this. A high school could make over $100,000 with fall, spring, prom, and all the sports teams they have.