When I was a kid and our schools held fundraisers, it was always a challenge to sell enough items to reap the rewards {incentives} in the colorful brochures. I tried and tried, but sometimes it just didn’t happen.
Throughout my son’s school years {and now my daughters}, there were fundraisers galore. I actually used to love when they brought home fundraising brochures, and always bought a thing or two to help them out. By help, I mean for them to sell enough products to ensure that they receive one or more prizes for themselves. Even though the prizes didn’t look very impressive to me {most of them were plastic, cheap-o things}, the kids were very excited to earn them. They typically had to sell quite a few items to even get the lowest level prize, which was very frustrating for them.
Of course now that my son is out of school, and my daughter is in high school, there are much better incentive programs for school fundraising. Instead of useless toys that will last a month at best, there are currently a few fundraising programs that offer fun parties as prizes! The kicker? Most of them only require a student to sell eight items, and then they enjoy either a fun splash party {at the school – complete with big, inflatable water slides, slip and slides, and other fun things to do. Of course, if a student sells more than eight items, they receive the party PLUS other prizes {soaking the teacher, wheel of fortune, etc.}. How fun is that? To me, eight items is a realistic goal {and a fairly easy one too!}.
There are other incentive parties as well. The Reptile Adventure Party and a Magic Party, just to name a couple. I think parties are an excellent way to reward kids for a job well done, while helping raise money for their school or program. I sure wish somebody had thought of this while I was still in school – I might have tried even harder. 🙂
*This is a Level 4 Post – although this is a sponsored post, the story is all mine.
3 Responses
I agree that the prize should be something fun rather than future landfill food. Kids need creative, active fun, not stuff that they won’t care for in a year. Memories last a lifetime, and the fun activities as prizes are perfect for making good memories.
I do indeed remember those fund raiser days when they’d all parade us into the gym, sit us down and proceed to tell us if we sold X amount of items, we’d be eligible to get these prizes, and if we even wanted to outdo ourselves, and sold XX amount of items, we’d get the BIG prize O.O
I never really cared about the prizes though-I just had fun going door to door, trying to sell the stuff. Lol
I like the idea of parties as rewards for fund raising. Much better than the random crappy ones I recall earning by selling candy bars and stuff. Happy Wednesday!