The kids assisted with decorations on several of the themes, but we try not to take away from their learning time.
We usually have one big idea for our main room and have the room decorators tie their inspiration to it. For example, for the Travels Through Time theme, we had the kids each submit a name of a most interesting person from the past that they had heard about. The names were very diverse -- Gandi, Shakespeare, Mother Teresa, Babe Ruth, Cleopatra, Rosa Parks, JFK, etc. We then took 20-40 of the submitted names and enlarged their pictures on to different size posters and decorated the school from earliest person to most recent person. We also took some of the most famous sayings of those people (and the ones not selected as posters) and enlarged them and posted them all around the school.
This generated much interest for the kids as the tried to match the sayings to the people and also asked questions about persons that were unfamiliar to them. Our library saw an increase in biography checkouts that week.
The kids attend a Family Preview Night, after school until around 5-6pm the Friday before the auction (ours is on a Saturday night, adults only). One of our parents generously supplies kid-friendly food and snacks as their donation to the auction.
We hold an annual auction each year based on a theme that both the parents and students can relate. Some of our theme have been Travels through Time (a look at the past, present and future), A Tribute to Heroes (everyday heroes, historical heroes, the "hero within" yourself, Grows Green (environment), Cracks the Case (ancient mysteries, legends, treasure hunts), and many more.
Our teachers incorporate the theme into the curriculum as they see fit and we find it challenges the students to learn something outside of the normal school day.
I would suggest you keep a log of ticket prices, attendance, total money raised and the dollars raised per person so you know exactly how much each person gives. This will benefit you and everyone else that helps with the auction down the road. Then you adjust the ticket price to get more people in the door. I think you'll continue to find that the more attendance you have, the more revenue you make - even at a lower door price.
Oh, I really like that Springhetti idea- may have to steal it for our spaghetti supper!
We just had our auction last weekend and it was a HUGE success. What a relief. We went out a limb this year and were not sure how it would go. Our past auctions have been galas at a local hotel with themes like red carpet, back to the 60s, and over the rainbow. It got to the point where our tickets were 50 a person. Last year our attendance was WAY down so we decided to try something different. We rented a hall that cost less than the hotel and asked people to bring an appetizer to share and charged $20pp to cover hall & bartender. The theme was actually "Simple Life"! We marketed it this way too. We told families that we were not doing center pieces or buying decorations> we had the kids make some decorations. It went over well. We live in an area where lots of parents are still out of work and heard from parents that they really appreciated the sensitivity to this. It was more about people and our kids. We did really well raising money too- better than the last 2 years.
