Did you know that the 99 Resturant will give free trash bags full of popped popcorn as well as individual bags to distribute it in. Saves time and money.
we do a family fun event each month-movie night is done about 5 times a year-we just finished with magic mountain-a children's fungym-that gave us $1 of each $5 ticket sold-we made $59.50 but it costs us nothing! Also Chuck E Cheese (a local kid's pizza place)is awesome at fundraising! We pay -0- upfront adn we get 15% of anything sold! We made $90 last year. We also have free movies and charge $0.50 for popcorn, $0.50 for pop and usually budget $50 each movie but never spend that much. Good luck!
Another idea is a cookie swap. Families can bring their own cookies to swap, and you provide plates, and whatever amount you decide is the amount people can take. Then, as an activity, you can do cookie decorating. Your local grocery store may donate dozens of sugar cookies, and you would just have to buy sprinkles, frosting and whatever else to decorate..
You could also have card-making.. just put out lots of white cardstock and crayons, stickers and assorted stuff and people can do whatever they want.......
last year we did Polar Express as our December Movie Night... we rented a popcorn popper from a local place ( cheap cheap) and bought the prepackaged popcorn/oil things right from them. They allowed us to return unused prepacks of popcorn/oil so we only paid for what we used.
We bought popcorn bags ( make sure they aren't huge, because you need to be able to keep up with demand.. and no matter how big the bag is, people will pay the $1.00.) Or, if you are giving them away, it helps stretch the dollars...
THEN... we bought 1 inch bells from Oriental Trading, and strung them on red ribbon, and hung them all on a broom stick so they wouldn't get tangled.. when the movie was over.. SANTA was waiting for the kids and he gave them each a bell and a candy cane as they were leaving.. we held the broom stick for him, and it was easy for him to slide the bells off the stick...
The kids were SO excited.. it was awesome..
We have found in the past that the majoritu of our Movie Night attendees are k-2 parents/kids, not the 3-5.
Movie Night is easy easy. I did two Family Fun Nights last year--Game Night and Movie Night. Game Night was a blast but a bit of work. Movie Night was simple. Get the license, pick a movie, print a flyer and get your refreshments and voila--you're done. Minimal volunteers needed. I scared up a few high school students who needed service hours to serve refreshments. It was fun and easy.
Good luck!
SHC
Looking at our calendar, I see we have several little fundraising events scheduled, and I would like to have one event before winter break that is a free fun family event. Time to give back to those families that have worked so hard so far this year...
Can you recommend a free fun family event that fits this criteria?
1. Must be able to plan it to be held sometime in Nov or early Dec
2. Must be held with a minimum of volunteers
3. Must have a small budget
I was thinking maybe a movie night...do I need more time to plan that? It seems like a game night needs a lot of volunteers...
