Stargazerlilly--We have a nutrition policy in NJ as well. However, if the items are being delivered after school and not distributed during the school day for students to consume, we are allowed to sell such items. We did not have our cupcake sale days during conference days, nor did we have our valentine lollipop sales this year, but we did sell candy bars & coffee cakes. Parents ordered and picked up after school. What families eat at home should not be governed by your school district, so I'm not sure why the PTO cannot sell items to be eaten at home; as long as they were picked up after school hours.
Making a positive difference one project at a time <img src=images/smilies/smile.gif>
Okay here is what a calendar raffle is. You pick a month to raffle off a cash prize every day of the week that month. You sell the raffle tickets for $10 a ticket. Let's say you decide to hold the raffle in November. That month has 30 days so you have 30 days of cash prizes. So lets say for example that you sell 500 tickets. You would bring in $5000 in ticket sales. You take a certain amount of the money (lets say half $2,500) to use for the cash prizes and you keep the other $2,500 as your profit. You take that $2,500 and break it into cash amounts that the winner will win on a particular day. Every day of that month is noted with what the cash prize will be that day. The lowest prize should be $25. The highest prize should be whatever you decide and is usually drawn on the last day. That last prize could be $500 or like I said whatever you decide. Also normally a winning ticket is put back into the pot and not discarded so every ticket you buy gives you 30 chances of winning.
Many organizations and Catholic schools have been doing these for years now and they are making huge money from them. The one Catholic school near me brings in about $20,000. So they profit $10,000 and the cash payouts are huge so people love to buy those tickets.
If you do a google search for calendar raffles you will see tons of organizations running them. Also you can search Calendar raffle printing for companies that print up the tickets...some of them also give you information on how to run one.
I've used Dutch Mill Bulbs for the last two years. They sell around 15 products (two in pots). Some are perennials and some are annuals. Everything is $5.00 and you make 50%. Now that may not sound like much, but we made over $1,000. last year selling bulbs.
