We were lucky enough to get tons of donations and nothing was out of pocket...100% profit.
We charged $5 adults & $3 for children.
A local pizza place boiled up the pasta and donated their sauce. The PTO volunteers dished it out along with a slice of bread & a salad. All drnks were self serve.
We had people buy tickets in advance so we knew how many people to expect. We also had a dj as it was a Valentine's Dinner/Dance.
We did a huge raffle with lots of dinated gifts.
We have a small school (150 students), and we managed to pull in $1000 profit.
we have served bottles of sparkling cider and made it into a sort of fancy, candle light dinner. Everyone "working" the dinner wears black and white and its a great money maker. Our band put this on EVERY year.
We send home flyers that preslae tictets for adults and kids for both dine in and take out. Its $8.00 for adults $5.00 for kids under 10. There is also a form to fill out if they would like to donate a dessert and they can drop it off the day of the dinner. We have done it doing the dinner ourselves buying spaghetti, cooking the food etc. there are restaurants that also provide spaghetti dinners like Olive Garden but we have a local one that we go through now. They provide the spaghetti, sauce, rolls, meatballs. We buy salad and dressing at Sams Club to go along with it.
For our school we have to have one of the cafeteria employees cook the food, but the PTO volunteers plate and serve. The teachers/ students who are helping take the tickets to the kitchen and we plate the meals and the teachers serve the families.
We have our drink donated by Coke.
I can't think of anything else, but if you have any other questions I would be happy to help.