I have a question in regard to Santa's Shops. We purchase our items and have them available for students to purchase, ranging from $1-$5 items.
In the past couple of years, we have run into a problem where we are running out of items for the later classes, even tho each year we purchase more and more. Our committee figures on purchasing approximately 6 items per student (we have approx. 250 students), but some students are purchasing 20 $1 items and more. Our conflict comes because students that shop later do not have a good selection of items, even though the committee has put boxes of items on the side to be opened at a later point in the day.
Aside from purchasing MORE items (which I think is eventually going to get out of hand), we have discussed limiting either the amount of money a student can spend or limit the number of items. Both have their pros/cons. We worry that if items are limited, a student may not be able to purchase items for each sibling (for a larger family) and then grandparents or whomever else they are purchasing for. Limiting money may not work if a student wants to purchase three $5 items for three people and we limit it to $10 or something... (some parents send their student in with $30-40 cash and that's not good for several reasons) I personally think limiting to 8 items would be sufficient, but then we're looking at purchasing 8 items/students to estimate and as I said, then we're getting into a larger and larger budget. I want this to remain a FUN activity for kids/volunteers. We offer to wrap for free, but have to limit it to 2-3 items because some of the kids are buying so much. (Last year, a student wanted to buy $26 worth of items and the dad was with her and asked if she could get it all for $20 because that's all she had; he ended up putting in the rest of the money, but I guess they don't understand this isn't a bargaining time, and maybe it's a good time to learn how to budget!)
Anyone's experience with this would help greatly!! We are going to discuss at the next couple of PTO meetings, but I would appreciate any outsider advice.
