I plan on taking this a step further. I moonlight as a waitress on the wkends and one night I waited on 7 adorable elderly ladies from town that ended up being our town's "Garden Club". Well I got to thinking, I know the Kinder kids do a section on Spring-types of flowers, how they grow etc. and the kids love having adult guests in, so I asked the garden club if they might like to come by and do some planting w/ the Kinder kids this spring. They were into it!!! So then I thought, why not ask some other non-profits to come in and segment our curriculum. The historical society may want to come in and talk about our town's history. The local art guild may want to teach a class, the book club may want to help start a parent/child club in our school etc. Anyway, it's on my long to do list this summer to reach out to these local clubs. I got quite a list of them through our local library. I'll let you know how this goes.

Great Idea! I never would have thought of asking the Elks or other clubs like that! I will call my aunt in the morning (she and her husband belong to a couple of clubs in town). Thank You Thank You Thank You!!! [img]tongue.gif[/img]

If I may offer another avenue for you....How about your local service clubs? Remember our Dad's belonging to the Kwanas, Loin's Club, Elks? We have found an Optimist group in our area that helps us out here and there. Granted we keep our "asking" around $200 but these days $200 is A LOT!! (This helps with purchase of snacks during state testing)

There is also a way of "asking" that I have always liked. A bakery donating cookies and allowing them to leave business cards to advertise. We did this for a Mom when our new library opened, she baked a sheet cake and left her cards with the cake. What ya think????

Thanks for the ideas! I am just frustrated over the whole what to do until we have funds and by the way lets have a welcome back dinner! over half of our school kids recieve free lunches and parents hate participating because of bad blood with the PTO years ago when my daughter was still in preschool! I just want to make our school as good as the upperclass neighborhoods in our town and not be thought of as the poor school that begs for everything and never works for it!

We try to keep our begging to a minimal, such as the Cake/Prize Walk during Fall Festival, and we have a "partnership" of sorts with a few locals. Meaning they don't mind a request every now and then.

There are always car washes,bake sales, and other types of fundraisers to make money. Some organizations around here have roadblocks. They set up at a safe place and hold out a bucket for the ones who want to donate. They don't stop you or harass you they just hold up a sign.

The other elementary in our county has an auction. Each classroom has a theme and the students in that room are asked to bring in something to match the theme in for a basket to be auctioned off. The classroom that gets the most money for their basket(s) win a pizza party. It is very successful.

Last year some of our staff members went into together and bought some baskets and holiday items. We used those in the prize walk for $5.00 per ticket. We made a bundle on that. I think there were 3 or 4 baskets, our walk was a record breaker thanks to this.

We don't have any trouble getting donations from businesses, we have trouble getting people to go out to get them. A couple of our local businesses told us they had been waiting for someone to come by because they had some things ready for us! We are very fortunate to have such supportive local businesses.

There are some companies that always keep things on hand for schools and other organizations. Keep those in mind. There are also companies that will match your fundraiser up to an x amount. Which can be very helpful.

Hi...I can relate somewhat to your frustration. Being in a small city with three other elementary schools, a junior high and high school there is not alot of room to ask for donations from businesses around town. infact our principal asked me last year that we stay away from hitting them up because they are hit up all the time. so we stay away from that, it's frustrating but we honor her request. It's funny because I am self employed and our business gets it too...which end result is saying no to almost everyone even the good causes. I don't know the answer but maybe someone else does????