I LOVE SCRIP!!! I am very involved with the Scrip Program at our small parochial school (250 kids). In our school, you either participate in Scrip and other fundraisers, or you opt out. We have about 1/2 participate in scrip. We used to use National Scrip Center, but their turn around time recently changed, so we changed to Great Lakes Scrip center (
www.glscrip.com
) This company is wonderful. For grocery we deal directly with our local grocery stores, who provide certificates to us at a 5% discount. I think that it pretty typical. Most people buy grocery, but around holidays, a lot of people buy for other stores too. Macys, Toys R us, etc. Those are the vendors we use Great Lakes for. We are looking for a $2.50 profit, per family, with their scrip order each week. So, our list is comprised of lots of merchants, and the minimum purchase you would make if you chose that vendor. After you make your minimum, you could then buy whatever amount of any other vendor. For example, everyone eats, right? So buy Grocery certificates. Your minimum is $50. That gives the school the 2.50 required from you. Then you can buy (if you want) a $10 Toys R Us for htat birthday party next week. Hopefully that's not confusing. We do it weekly, ordering on Friday, filling the orders on a Tuesday ngiht. The envelopes go home iwth the oldest child on Wednesday, and new orders come back in by Friday morning for the Friday order. It's been very successful for us, and las tyear we earned $15,0000. If you have any other questions, or I can help you in any way, let me know.