We also are a school with very low budget, about $1000. and extremely low parent support. My children attend this school on temporary transfer year to year basis now as we have moved across town and in another district. We live so close to the school they SHOULD attend, that I can look out my kitchen window and into a classroom. When the weather is nice and windows are open, I can hear the teacher instructing the students. Yet, I choose to drive my children across town to this other school because the teachers are WONDERFUL!!!!! I get so frustrated that the parents of our school to me, seem ungreatful! I volunteered so much last year that the principal said I belonged on the school payroll because I was ALWAYS at school. I do this because I appreciate the teachers and realize that any time I can give, the students benefit from. I would LOVE to find an easy fundraiser that the parents would support and the PTO could make some money so we can do more for our teachers. I love the idea of giving each teacher $ at the beginning of the school year for any supplies they may need.
We had a chili supper we held in conjunction with the fall festival. Made little money due to food being purchased instead of donated. None of the parents wanted to ask businesses for donations. We held the Christmas Shop, which we keep as a service to the kids and not a fundraiser. We usually only profit about $200 - $300. We host a free admission movie night and charge $1. for soda and popcorn. Ended up MAYBE breaking even because the movie license was higher last year. This is all we do. I would love to sell t-shirts, as the last school t-shirts were given to the students in 2002 out of a school fund. I tried to raise money during the bookfair by asking parents to donate .50-1.00 for their childs classroom teacher and in exchange the class with the highest amount raised, the students would recieve and ice cream party. I think there were only two classrooms that made approximately $20 and most teachers had were a few dollars and some collected none. I felt horrible for these teachers. One year prior to teacher appreciation I asked parents to donate what they could afford for a gift for their child's teacher for teacher appreciation week. We have approximately 45 teachers and aide's. We only collected approximately $50 in donations, this being with a grandparent who made a $25 donation for their grandchilds teacher. I ended up purchasing cheap clay flower pots from Home Depot and plants from Wal-Mart out of the donated money and my own money and gave these as gifts. I spent and entire evening potting the plants on my front porch.
During teacher appreciation week we usually have a dinner for the teachers and staff (combined). We ususally purchase the food and the cafeteria cooks it. We usually purchase each teacher a small gift. Last year we had a change in plans and we found a local restaruant who only charged us $1.85 per teacher for glazed chicken breast, green beans, salad, baked potato. Ok, I admit that my mother-in-law works there and got this set up, and she donated her time in the restaurant kitchen to fix this. My brother-in-law makes homemade rolls that are out of this world and he donated those. Cakes and pies were donated by the parents of the PTO. Needless to say we did the food for $111. for approximately 60 people, we invited the superintendent and assistant superintendent also. We rented the local Nutrition Center as the teachers love getting out of the school setting at a cost of $50. Flowers for the tables were purchased by the principal and the candles were what I have used every year. Having saved so much money on the food, we were able to make a donation of $300 to the school library.
Our school has only had a PTO since 2001 and none before that because their was never any support. The old principal named me president in 2001 and have had this position ever since. In 2001 we had a president, vice president, secretary and treasurer. Eventually the vice president stopped showing up, the secretary was a school teacher who accepted a position with the administration in a non-teaching role away from our building. These positions were never re-placed. Last year we lost our treasurer due to her son moving on to Middle School. This will be our principals third year, and last year we had a PTO leader, which I was appointed and she took over the checkbook, which is ok. We have no "by-laws". The PTO dwindles down every year. I do not even know for sure if the principal will have a PTO this year. I am going ahead and planning as though we will until I hear otherwise. We have a PTO website on the school web-site, however, it stated "under construction". I am going to ask if I can come in monthly and update it with the PTO information. I have printed up the teacher surveys the parent sign-up forms and the welcome letter. We have never used these before.
I wish the parents would get more invoved! Even though I have gotten some good ideas on here, I would really appreciate any ideas on fundraisers or events your schools hold that you make money off of.
Any ideas or suggestions would also be welcome!