We just finished this little fundraiser. The kids really got into it and had a lot of fun. This was actually a spirit fun activity put on by our student council and we expected to make just enough to cover the prizes, but we ended up making a profit.

This is "Turkey Teacher". Each classroom teacher had a picture of a turkey with their name on it on a board. (We set ours up in the hallway and moved it to the lunchroom each day.) The kids were able to purchase a feather for the turkey of their choice for 10 cents each OR take a feather off of the turkey of their choice for 25 cents. We did this for the full week prior to Thanksgiving (17th-21st). On Friday, the turkey with the most feathers won - that teacher received a frozen turkey (the largest we could find) and that class received a party (the party is upcoming).

Our school has 5 classrooms with 130 students and they kids brought in $312 during the week. Feathers were for sale only during lunch time and could only be purchased at the table by the turkey board. The office and teachers did not have to have anything to do for this fundraiser.

The older grades really got into the competition and were bringing in handfuls of coins as well as larger bills. I did make the requirement that I wouldn't take $10's or $20's from the kids unless they had parent permission.

I had a log to keep track of feathers sold to put on and take off for each turkey each day and kept a running total (I didn't have to count all the feathers on the last day this way). After cutting out feathers, I stapled them into groups of 5 to make it a bit easier to count out when purchased. As feathers were purchased, I put them into envelopes with the teachers name on it and then as I had breaks in selling, would tape the feathers onto the turkeys. Also, on Friday I started to run out of the small feathers so I ended up cutting some large ones out and making them worth 50 small feathers.

This could easily be adapted to fit any holiday/theme just by changing the name and pictures used.