We had the same situation come up recently. I was ready to sign on with a company after doing research and receiving some sample items I wasn't that impressed. We also have a large population of lower income folks so we decided to do it ourselves. We went to our local dollar store and spoke with the manger about giving us a 10% discount and letting us return whatever is not sold within 10 days after the shop is over. Originally we spoke to a larger 'dollar store' chain in the area and it wasn't an option to return only exchange items. We plan to go next week to purchase approximately $350.00 worth of merchandise all for $1.00 or less. Then only mark each item up $.25 to cover the cost of supplies to put the shop on. We don't want to do it as a fund-raiser only a service to the kids. We are going to transform part of our cafeteria into a little people shop for 1/2 a day on Friday and 5 hours on Saturday. We will be having coffee and baked goodies for the parents in another room of the school and each child will be able to shop for 1 hour with the help of a High School helper. We chose to have a time limit to avoid the parent just dropping off the child. Then we got several rolls of wrapping paper and ribbon donated from parents and we will be having a high school volunteers help kids "wrap" 1-2 gifts. We will have popcorn and hot chocolate for the kids to snack on.
I have to tell you I was leary about taking this on myself but after reading the many posts (both positive and negative) I felt like this was a good service to offer the kids.
Does anyone have any experience organizing a holiday gift shop for an elementary school? I've volunteered to do this on short notice and any advice would be very much appreciated! I've been searching the web and am a bit confused as to which companies are better than others. My school is in a fairly low-income area and I need a company with a good selection of cheaper gifts but I don't want the kids to buy junk. Thanks to anyone who can help! This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
