Our Pto chose not to do the same old door to door catalog sales this year. We had over
$22,000 in the account to begin with . We purchased new stage curtains and new kindergarten playground equipment which depleted our account.We then began our Family Nights which brought in alittle more cash flow. Realizing that we had to keep our promise of not doing major fundraisers we came up with the idea of ads on the back of our newsletters that go out each month. The cost being $25 per month. This is promising to bring in about $4,000 per school year. Not alot of work either. We also reward our students for obtaing their reading goal each month with prizes. These are bought with popcorn proceeds each month. There are other ways of raising money for your schools. I know it is not thousands but it does help keep the frustration down. Our family nights have raised about $1,000 total, then our final spaghetti dinner/Talent show will prove to be succesful. It is all how you present things to your parents and staff. We have increased our parent involvement by 75% because they are finally having fun. Remember your parents are the ones that support your PTO and the financial part of it we need all parents to be supportive and to know they are important. We regonize each and every one of them at our spaghetti dinner , that is important to give them that little pat on the back, it does kepp them returning. After all everyone of us loves to know we are special.
