We had 2 free events this year. The first was a Family Movie Night. Popcorn, water, juice and candy bars were sold for a small fee. The second was a Family Skate Night. Flyers were sent home and all were welcome. We had around 250 students last year. The attendance to both was ok. It's hard to find something that everyone will want to attend.

If you want to have a free event, that is open to everyone and don't want to worry about enough room, you could either: have an ice cream social at the school or have an ice cream party for each class.

This year we do plan on having the Family Skate Night and another Family Night. I've request Science Night brochure.

Is there a way you can do something free that is just for the students without involving the parents? I know the same ones wanting a handout are always around for us also, so we started doing things like the storey telling with free watermellon. or free ice cream after their lunch. Our family nights are free, but they can purchase hotdogs.

i guess the thing that really bothers me is the effect it has on the kids. What we do is supposed to benefit ALL of the students in the school.

regardless of this, i do like someone's suggestion of breaking it down into grades. it means you will have a little more work to do handling 2 free events. DLF's suggestion for the distobution and tracking also seems like it would work well.

Good luck with this!

Originally posted by GaMom:
I guess my question is...if you are doing something to reward the school for meeting the fundraising goals, why can only a few people come? Shouldn't it be something that rewards everyone, not just the lucky few who get their forms in first? i think the idea of doing something is great, but this type of thing would be a great way to get new people involved, but when you limit it, you are limiting that also.

We are fortunate that the city park is right in front of our school, so we get to do lots of things there like ice cream social and storeytelling in the park with free watermelon afterwords.

Originally posted by GaMom:
I guess my question is...if you are doing something to reward the school for meeting the fundraising goals, why can only a few people come? Shouldn't it be something that rewards everyone, not just the lucky few who get their forms in first? i think the idea of doing something is great, but this type of thing would be a great way to get new people involved, but when you limit it, you are limiting that also.

We are fortunate that the city park is right in front of our school, so we get to do lots of things there like ice cream social and storeytelling in the park with free watermelon afterwords.

That's the rub. My original post was to address this. We don't have room for everybody -- 1000 kids plus families -- if they all want to go. So how do we fairly have free events for all?

From experience, we know that far less than half will likely show up anyway. It's the 'What-ifs' that cause us grief.

I don't think the ones who turn in their slip early are 'lucky' -- just organized and attentive.

With a few years of PTO leadership under my belt, I can tell you that there is a segment of the population that always has a hand out -- and it's usually not those with financial problems. These folks not only want stuff for free, but they want you to chase them down and make them take what you have. Then, they want to complain to you about it. These are the people we hold on to deadlines for.

I don't mind when people don't offer help, but it really gets me when they act like I am working for them.

I guess my question is...if you are doing something to reward the school for meeting the fundraising goals, why can only a few people come? Shouldn't it be something that rewards everyone, not just the lucky few who get their forms in first? i think the idea of doing something is great, but this type of thing would be a great way to get new people involved, but when you limit it, you are limiting that also.

We are fortunate that the city park is right in front of our school, so we get to do lots of things there like ice cream social and storeytelling in the park with free watermelon afterwords.

Send out a flyer that your event is free, but you must have a ticket to enter and that 200 tickets will onl.y be given out.

ABC Elementary Skate Night
Admission: free!**

**You must have a ticket to enter, only 200 tickets available on a first come -first serve basis, tickets may be reserved mon-friday august 1-7

Please send bottom portion back to PTO
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

parent name________________
Child Name______________
Homeroom teacher___________________
Phone #_________________________
number of skate tickets_____________________

We just did this. Made it clear on the flier this was a reservation event and could only handle 200 people. Then made it clear to the teachers that all the fliers had to go home on the same day and as responses came in they were marked with the date they were turned into the front office (thank goodness for our friend in the front office) and we sorted and arranged by turnin--calling the first 200 that applied. The distro and turn in tracking are key to making this a fair event....d