We sell pickles and popcorn every Wed after school for .50 cents each. We are making about $90.00 a week. This is something that we started this year with each week the money made is going up.

Another catalog, or T-shirt, or blah-blah-blah UGH!
I feel all of your pain! We do NO real fund raisers. What do I mean? At the beginning of this year we decided to Raise the Fun of school events and how we generate $$$.
We have rasied our yearly dues to 25.00/family. 90% of families paid.
We are lucky enough to have a several local professional teams (dolphins, Marlins, Heat, Panthers and Pitbulls) All teams will give us reduced price tickets which we add 5.00/ticket charge. The ticket is still cheaper from the PTO than it is buying from the box office. We also found a local restaurant that has "partnered" with us and will feed your child for free with each paid adult entree before the game.
We also have our own PTO picnic at a local park. Their is NO charge to come and we play family picnic games (3-legged race, egg toss, tug of war teachers vs students etc.) But we do a raffle with items from both local businesses and national companies like Disney, Sea Escape, Blockbuster etc.
Chuck E Cheese and Kabooms playcenter nights also are a nice bunch of change done 2 or 3 times a year.

Bottom line we got rid of the typical fundraisers and still make more than enough to operate our PTO and Pay for every child's yearbook simply by raising the fun in the school, the community, and the parents and staff!

Science and Spaghetti night, please do tell

Our elementary was limited to two large sales type fundraisers per year (regardless of owner). Over the years policies changed. PTO owned both, then school=1/PTO=1, then school=both. (They wanted PTO to focus on volunteerism, not fundraising.)

But we still had/have events that raise funds either to be breakeven (Breakfast with Santa) or extra (Spring Fling). And we handled t-shirts and school supply kits.

A few extra things might come up - like the art teacher would usually do one of the deals where you buy an item printed with your child's artwork. And, of course, bookfair each season.

But overall, it was manageable.

Middle school is totally unregulated. The school and every club/group/team seems to be selling something. It's endless.

[ 03-01-2006, 10:31 PM: Message edited by: JHB ]

threeboysmom, would you elaborate on your group's Science and Spaghetti night. This sounds interesting. Thanks.

I definately know the "too many fundraiser" burn out all too well. When the school is asking us to donate or sell something everytime you turn around it does get annoying, but the PTO needs the money to fund the school so you get stuck in the middle. We also do things for diabeties and needy children and that type of things throughout the year as well. So the planning is hard on what would clash and what wouldn't. We explain to our kids that we can't participate in everything especially since we are in scouts and sports and volunteer at a food pantry too (so our things get donated there) and my kids seem to understand. We choose one fundraiser from the school that we will sell and we try not to go to the same people for scouts or sports. I think if more people would participate in one big fundraiser then the select few parents that do participate won't feel so burnt out doing them all.

Laura

[ 02-25-2006, 08:59 AM: Message edited by: Rockne ]