We also used to do a Holiday Store, or Santa's Secret shop. But, like you said, it was a service for the kids - never a fund raiser. We had very inexpensive items in it and I think it was great for the kids. Ours is a medium school - neither wealthy nor poor, but there are a lot of hardship cases financially. We literally had kids come in with $1 and wanted to buy for 6 people (and they did!). As you said, the stuff was basically junk, but it fun and the kids felt great that they were providing a gift for their loved ones on Christmas. It was a TREMENDOUS amount of time and effort - ultimately too much, so we discontinued it a couple years ago.
Our Breakfast with Santa is also a service event, not a fundraiser. We budget about $500 for expenses, and it generally breaks even.
Santa's Secret shop at our school, has always just been a service to the kids. It is not a big money maker and it is a LOT of work!
We previously used a company called Fun Services to go to and pick out the items we wanted to sell, Then you can mark the prices up 5%, 10% or whatever. Keeping in mind that kids will be doing the shopping. That is how you make the profit.
The comments from parents at our school has been that the products are of poor quality and are expensive. You can also get crafter parents to donate items to sell and then you make 100% profit on those items. Again, things are sold relatively cheap because the shopping is done by the kids for their family gifts.
Good luck if you decide to proceed. We did Santa's secret shop for 10 years and finally decided to try a craft show.
We also have a Breakfast with Santa each year that's lots of fun. We have pictures with Santa, donuts & juice, and about 3 crafts the kids can make. Last year we added karoke which was a big hit and kept the place festive with all the Christmas songs and dancing!
On the crafters, we added this to carnival a couple years ago, and it was okay as a supplemental piece. What we didn't really expect (or plan for) was that 2 or 3 of the crafters also brought coolers of softdrinks and snacks to sell along with their crafts. This ended up competing slightly with our own food sales.
We decided next time (if ever) we'd add a clause in the letter prohibiting the sale of food items without advance permission.
[This message has been edited by JHB (edited 09-30-2000).]
Hi, Our school has 2 separate events at Christmas that might work for you. We have our Santa Shop like most schools. But we also have a Breakfast with Santa the Saturday morning after school lets out for Christmas Break! This year we will be having booth spaces for crafters at the Breakfast - I've been told we've done this before and it worked very well. I thought this idea would be perfect for your 10 applications that where returned! The last 2years we've tried just having make & take craft tables for the kids - it worked OK but didn't draw the crowds that the "craft Bazarre" are should. Good Luck!
Dont be upset about it we would also like to have a craft show but who has the time or money to make and buy alll the materials for the craft show why not use the 10 applications you have and ask them to donate the items to the secret santa kids really enjoy shopping secretly dont get rid of the santa shop just have fun
