We have found that experiential baskets, rather than goods or services, bring in the most money. We did a "Redskins Family Weekend" basket last year that sold for $320 and included 4 tix to a Redskins game, one night stay at a nice DC hotel, all packed in a Redskins tailgater backpack along with snacks, soda, pom poms, a Redskins penant etc. The tix were donated by the parents of two students (one had season Redskins tix, the other worked for the hotel chain). My advice: find out what your parents can donate at no cost and then package it nicely. We spent $40 on the backpack and Redskins bling.
I have been involved in our Spring carinval for 5 year now. For our basket we have an auctioneer that comes in and auction them off for us. Each grade level picks a theme and they supply it or each kid brings $1 and we use that to purchase whatever we need for that basket. We done a let's bake basket last year and it brought $225. Then we have done bottle water with our school name and logo on each bottle 24 bottles and a cooler and it brought $450. Then we go around to local businesses and have them donate items and we sell our raffle tickets for those items. Then we have a 1st place and 2nd place item for the raffle tickets. So whom ever sales the most raffle tickets when the 1st place item which is normally a $100 gift certificate to walmart and 2nd place gets a $75 g.c. to walmart.
Hi just a quick addition to all this wonderful basket information!!
We've always had the teachers also put together a lottery basket and since they are the adults with cash not to mention it's illegal for the kids to bring in the lottery tickets it always works so well for them. We just have the teachers donate anything from $1 up and then one person from the PTO goes and gets regular and instant lottery tickets from the store. We did a cute one last year with a small plastic tree. We hung all the tickets from the branches and it was the "Money Tree" basket!! That one always brings in a decent amount of tickets which equals out to a decent amount of money!!
Our school usually lets the room parent from each class pick their theme and they are in charge of bringing in items for their basket. Each item is donated or kids can donate money and then the room parent buys the rest of stuff to fill their basket. Then these baskets are raffled off at the end of our carnival. Tickets are a $1 each and they can put in as many as they want and all proceeds go to the school. We have had themes in the past such as:
Crayola, game night, scrapbooking, shopping spree (random gift cards on a tree), hometown sports teams are a hugh hit, Spongebob ....
We have done a Colorado and Colorado State baskets that were a huge hit! This year we have a basket for the Colorado Rockie (baseball) and excited to see how much it goes for.
it always works so well for them. We just have the teachers donate anything from $1 up and then one person from the PTO goes and gets regular and instant lottery tickets from the store. We did a cute one last year with a small plastic tree. We hung all the tickets from the branches and it was the "Money Tree" basket!! That one always brings in a decent amount of tickets which equals out to a decent amount of money!!
