Was the proposal sent to them in any particular format?
Are there any restrictions other than must be non-profit and within their distribution area?

Tonight is our 2nd annual spaghetti dinner. We're planning on about 200 people. This year we got our pasta sauce donated from Francesco Rinaldi. Go to their web site www.francescorinaldi.com and click on special offers.
They donated 12 gallons of sauce, 20 water bottles and 20 pasta forks, napkins and coupons. I was shocked!!! The forks and water bottles we used as table decorations. We put 1 lb. bags of pasta in each bottle, taped the bottle lid to the top of the fork and wrapped it in red or green celophane paper and tied it with string. Very cute!
Our dinner is by donation only but last year we made about $300. We didn't want anyone excluded because they couldn't afford the dinner. This event was just a nice thing for the PTF to do- absolutely no expectations from the families.

We do the same thing with our school as "Southviewmom". It's not meant to be a fundraiser, but we have it in conjunction with Parent Teacher conferences so parents don't have to cook that night.

Have any of you had pasta or sauce donated? I'm checking into that for our Family Dinner in Feb. Last year we had about 200 show up and it was only by dontaion and we raised about $300 after receipts were subtracted. This year I've contacted a few Pasta and sauce makers to see if they'd donate.
We're a small christian school and families have a difficult enough time with tuition let alone all the extras. This was a just for fun and fellowship event and the turn out was unbelievable! Cant wait until this next year.

Hi, We do this every year at back to school night. Parent group members would sign up - noodles, meat, salad packs, bread, dressing, etc. Those with noodles and meat were to cook at home that afternoon and everyone brought their stuff to the cafeteria and we would combine everything in the warmers and it always worked out really well. We'd just add the sauce and have a plain sauce and the meat sauce to choose from. The big prepared salad bags, dressings, and rolls and we were set.

Our group has done these for years with the help of the vocational high school. They helped out with the prep work. Better yet, the last two years we have hired a catering company to come do all the work. Less volunteers are needed and more families can sit down together. We have also had entertainment with our dinners. We charge a little more than the catering cost to offset some of the entertainment cost, then divide the people into two "sittings" so you don't need to feed everyone at once. Half the group watch the entertainer and the eat at the second "sitting". Print out two colored tickets with instructions on where to go first [img]smile.gif[/img] [img]smile.gif[/img] . Good Luck!