We just had our first ever Donuts With Dad this morning. It was great! Thank you to whomever first posted this terrific idea. Everyone should try it.

Some particulars in case you're considering a similar event: Ours was a free event, but the dads had to rsvp for a ticket because we have space limitations. About 300 dads and kids came. We started 50 minutes before class started. Each person was allocated 2 donuts (we spent about $200 on donuts). We offered juice boxes and coffee (not enough - next time, bring more urns!!). Several moms volunteered to serve and clean up, but the whole event was planned by one of our dads, using info from this forum for guidance. He also bought a few gift certificates as door prizes. There was no program, just visiting-and that was enough for this crowd. Parking was our biggest challenge, but we put some moms outside to direct traffic. The chairdad also handed out a flyer with information about a new dads club he's trying to get started.

The students loved being at school with their dads. At the end, the dads escorted their kids to class and off they went. We were done and cleaned up by 9:15 am. What fun!

We do Donuts with Dad in the fall and Muffins with Mom in the spring. Generally we've held the events from 7:00 to 7:30, since school starts at 7:30. It doesn't leave us with alot of time to serve that many people. The fall Dads event has worked out smoothly, but we are having to rethink the spring Moms event this year - the last two years we've just had too many people to serve in the cafeteria in that short an amount of time. This last year there weren't enough seats in the cafeteria, children were late for class, the children who receive free breakfast at school had nowhere to sit - it was just a mess. We're looking for other suggestions for the Moms event!

Ours is in the Cafeteria/Auditorium from 7:45- 8:30ish. We have 513 students but only about 70-80 dads,(or male guardians, grandfathers, other male family member) attended our 2 Donuts with Dad events (although not the same 70-80 each time)

I'm gonna try the RSVP and Dad Day combo this year, I think :cool:

Hey out there, I'm new to this, so here goes.... Where in your buildings do you hold these events that bring in 300-400 people? Also, doesn't this create problems with kids who don't have someone to go to the event with?

Angela,

It seems like we planned both events for the middle of the week and timetable was 8:30-9:30 a.m. (we start school at 9:45a.m.) That gave enough time for all the students to make it to class. It works for us!

We coordinated Donuts with Dad with PTA's Take Dad to School day (although many of us change it to take a special person) Donuts and we start about an hour before school starts. By the time school started, we still had a line out the door though and we had to make two additional runs to the store for more donuts and drinks. Afterwards, the kids could take their special person to class with them for the first hour of class.