HI all. I stumbled across this message board today while researching donation ideas for an event we have upcoming. I'm part of a PTSA in Arkansas. We always have a big silent auction at our Fall Festival and for some reason I did not know that we could submit requests for donations at so many places online. Thank you for the info! I spent most of the day filling out what forms I could - our event is September 29th though, so unfortunately it was past many of the deadlines. But I'll know now next year and be able to hit it hard.
I wanted to share something we do at our silent auction that is wildly successful. We of course do the normal of hitting the pavement and hitting up personal connections for donations, but we also involve our whole school. Our 1st - 6th grades have "themes". We send home flyers asking parents to send an item in their theme to the school (big or small) then we take the items and make packages and baskets out of them. This year our themes are: K- "Blazer spirit" (send anything in our school colors or spirit items); 1st grade - "ASU Red Wolves" (our local college); 2nd grade - "Arkansas Razorbacks; 3rd grade (divided evenly among classes) - "Girl Power", "Boy Oh Boy" and "Kiss The Cook"; 4th grade - "St. Louis Cardinals", "Pampered Pets" and "Baby Oh Baby"; 5th grade - "Art Attack" and "Family Fun Day"; 6th grade - "Teen Scene" and "Garden, Grill and Backyard Fun". We get enough items to make anywhere from 6 -10 baskets per grade. For our junior high (which is 7th -9th for us) we have one flat theme of 'gift cards' of any amount and we use them to make packages. Also in our junior high the E.A.S.T class calls local business and asks for donations. The teacher incorporates this as a lesson in soft skills teaching them how to fund raise, how to speak to people on the phone, etc. And in our high school we ask each club to donate at least one gift basket or auction item of their choice. For instance our Spanish Club usually donates a Spanish themed cooking basket. Our FFA usually donates a deer stand they they have built. Our drama club donates season passes to productions in our Fine Arts Center. Our special needs classroom practices their practical life skills and makes jams, jellies and items for our country store/bake sale. Our administration donates 2 Season Family Passes to sporting events. You get the idea. When we set the auction up we have these things groups together - so all K baskets would be together with a sign thanking the Kindergarten for the donations and so on. All the way through until the clubs in high school. Then we have a section of "individual donations" that includes stuff we've procured ourselves, etc. And this year we are adding a new "shop local" section that will be donations from locally owned businesses.
Another tip, if you have any factories in your area ask them! We have a POST plant in town and every year they make a HUGE basket for us FULL of their products, POST branded apparel and hats and they usually include a gift card to a store that carries their products (like Kroger or Walmart).
Anyway, I was so appreciative of all the info I found on the thread I wanted to contribute and share some of our successful practices.
p.s. I'm super excited about the Disney tickets! Too late to get them for our Fall Festival, but I'm going to document all of our projects this year so I can submit in time for next year's Fall Festival! Does anyone know what kind of expiration date they have ... how long you have to use them?
Lois Lane or anyone else. How did you go about getting tickets from local arenas? Who did you contact? Ticketmaster tells me they don't do that. I've emailed several places and haven't heard anything.
I contacted the recording companies for some popular artists that are coming to town and also asked for tickets but haven't heard any replies yet.
