Our school ask for donations from the parents first. We try to get gift card, kids gifts, parent gifts from $10.00 - $25.00. To make things go smoother we have grab bag BINGO. We use the white sandwich bags and label them with #'s we write a clue on the bag of what the prize might be. We put the kids prizes at other end of table. Boy/Girl both if it is for younger child the prize we hint k-2. The people who work are table will hand prize bag to winner or we have them in room with matching #;s. with prizes. We had parent making a big deal one year when we annouced prizes and they wanted something else and kept trying to trade. We staple throw away cards in pack of 10 and sell them for $5.00 a pack. We also have pizza for sale which parents pre-order, bakesale items and 50/50 raffle
We are holding our first Book Bingo tonight. We are not charging admission and we are providing popcorn and drinks for free. We made our own BINGO cards with book titles instead of numbers and the winners get to choose a book! This is part of our parent involvement incentive in our school improvement plan.
We too have a Bingo Night every year. This is our BIGGEST fundraising event.
We charge $5 per slider bingo card, which you can play all night long. We serve your choice of frito pie, chili dog or hotdog with a drink for $3. We sell popcorn for 25 cents, soda refills a quarter.
One of our biggest money raisers is our Cake Walk, which brought in $430. We sell cake walk tickets for $1 each and we had a fabulous mother who collected cakes from local stores and kept them in her freezer. She brought in 70 cakes for us!
Last year our 5th graders needed money for their end of the year field trip, so I arranged for them to sell Applebees certificates which were $2 for a free soft drink or milkshake or $5 for free mozarella sticks and we received 100% of the profit. I don't know if they are still offering this fundraising program or not.
For our prizes, we put together huge themed gift baskets with a prize value or $75-$100 a piece. In the past, these were put together by a parent from each classroom. This year, due to poor participation, our Booster Club is sending out a letter asking for $ donations or any business donations. I have been soliciting donations online from one of the threads listed here and have received several different donations from companies such as Disneyland, Stampin Up, and famous authors.
Each Bingo winner gets to choose a basket of his or her choice and we have several different gift certs from local stores for runner ups.
We have our principal and his wife collect money at the door. The Booster Club Pres and/ or teacher's call out numbers and check cards. And MAKE SURE if you have baskets as gifts, that you have some sort of "security" based around them, because we have had baskets "walk" out the door in the past!
Here's too good luck in 2010 for all of us hosting Bingo Nights!
Our elementary school has done Family Bingo Night for 13 years this year. We charge $1 per person for 1 card per person. We set aside $1000 of our budget for prizes. We purchase toys costing no more than $5 each on clearance after the holidays. We then spend money on gift certificates from area businesses for the adults in the audience. We play special adult only bingo for the parents. Each child that bingos gets one toy and after that we have candy bars from Sams Club they win. We stamp their hands after their first bingo. We play B & O bingo, backwards bingo (last one standing), and the letter T bingo. We do a full card bingo at the end for a grand prize. Last year our grand prize was a home theater system. The 8th graders at our school sell hot dogs, popcorn, candy and pop. Bingo is open to K-6th graders. We have teachers volunteer to check cards and the kids love going to a teacher to check their cards. We use an overhead projector to show the numbers called, a teacher marks them on the screen. Our principal calls the numbers for us each year. We keep playing until we have quite a few bingos each time. It is amazing how many items you can buy with this amound of money. We also do give the money back during the evening with money drawings from the money collected at the door. We divide it into envelopes and call numbers from raffle tickets they get when entering. We usually have 4 or 5 $25 envelopes and a $50 or two. We usually have around 300 people attend from our small town. We usually have around 130 or 140 toys and they are all gone by the end. We usually purchase 3 boxes of assorted candy bars at Sams and the adult gift certifcates are usually $10 each. Our kids love this event every year.
I order prizes from Rhode Island Novelty; little notebooks and cool pens, matchbox type cars, mini games and such. I try to order different things every year so the kids stay excited for the new prizes. We also do scrip gift cards in the lower denominations ($10) for big kids and adults that win.
Our kids also really love the ink dabbers. We order them in bulk in every color available and sell them for $1. We use disposable cards...several years ago someone ordered a huge box of them and they sure do last!
