My son is in kindergarten and he’s already come home with a fund raising package. Actually it’s pretty neat stuff, candles and candle holders but still trying to find anyone to buy this crap will be a nightmare. My son’s school is trying to raise money for new playground equipment. They had a carnival Friday night and now of course the fund raiser. The carnival was was pitiful, the “prizes” for the games were limited to extra recess periods for the class who played the most. My son’s class doesn’t get recess yet. I’m just shocked that the fund raising is already starting, I thought I had at least til the 5th grade before I had to fight this demon.
This sounds exactly like something I read in a Jim Hightower book about a CEO who bought out his son’s quota of Boy Scout fundraising popcorn, then gave it out and listed the expense on his tax return as “promotional materials” and even got money back from the IRS on the deal. I wonder if the schools are doing the same thing?
Our pizza party came out of our profits too. There was a big debate about that. I didn’t set up the fundraiser but I believe the original agreement was that they were to pay for the party. What a racket.
We are going to a “fee-for-service” policy soon. Some programs are already doing this. I coach and we require our kids to pay $300.00 or raise $300.00 in profits. The district charges us to participate in the “athletic package”. We have to pay the athletic trainer $10.00 per kid. Our funding from the district amounts to less than half of the expenses we incur. There isn’t enough money to pay officials, provide transportation, uniforms, tournament fees, etc. We are operating at a loss because we play all varsity games off campus so that kills attendance, or at least hurts attendance. Besides, we don’t get gate receipts anyway. We travel 18 miles in rush hour traffic to play home games. Crazy. This is my last year of coaching. This idiocy is a big reason why. Oh and the fee-for-service will not only be for athletics. There will be lab fees, computer fees, library fees, art fees, theater fees, etc. Supposedly, we will offer a very basic and bare package for no fee. This will be what your tax dollars will provide. If students wish to get the extra stuff, like say participate in newspaper, choir, yearbook, video tech, digital photography, etc, they will have to come up with the “fee”. Maybe the Bush administration should have a big bake sale or carnival to fund this war.
I’ve mentioned before the “Fair Share” requirement for certain classes and activities at my daughter’s school. It applies to athletic teams, chorus, band, drama, and probably more. My kid is on swim team and in chorus, so I have two Fair Shares to pay. Swim team only runs about $20, but the doggone bathing suits are $45!!
Chorus is $60, and they do a lot of fundraising things. Last year it occurred to me that I was spending over $100 to avoid paying $60. So I informed my beloved offspring that I wasn’t buying anything. Well, I did buy some pies, but they are soooooo yummerrific! She knew not to ask me about any of the crap-for-sale this year, but I know she sold some stuff to her bf’s grandmother, and another friend bought an Entertainment book. So that’s coming off my $60 tab, which is fine.
As I think back over all the stupid fundraisers she had over the years, I’d have gladly just written a check to cover her share rather than take the catalogs to work, where I’d wind up having to buy crap from other parents. And when I become a grandmother, I’ll write a check for the school too, and not support child exploitation!
For 2 weeks I’ve been bombarded with fundraisers. I loathe them with a passion.
A few years back, at several people’s request, our PTO instituted a “buy-out” program where for x dollars per family, you could opt out of all fundraisers and guarantee that your kids would get the minimum participation incentive prize. Now I can just write one check at the beginning of the school year and not worry that my kid is going to have his day ruined because he didn’t get a freaking “weepul.” A weepul is a colored cotton ball with eyes and feet glued on and it was the incentive for selling magazines. Seriously. At the kindergartnen teacher’s request, they also implemented a policy that K-4 kids got the weepuls (or whatever the incentive prize was) no matter what because she had kids crying crocodile tears over cotton balls.
As far as the Girl Scouts go, we were discussing this the other day at our Girl Scout meeting. The Boy Scouts sell one box of popcorn for $25, 75% of which goes to the troop. 20 minutes of time and they’re done with their fundraising for the year. The Girl Scouts, on the other hand, commit hundreds of hours of volunteer labor to sell hundreds of boxes of cookies to end up with beans. This is a major difference between men and women. Men simply wouldn’t volunteer hundreds of hours of their time to fundraising because they see their time as having value. Women don’t. If the troop leader were to ask my husband to man a booth for 4 hours selling cookies, here’s what he’d say. "You want me to work 4 hours in the cold selling cookies to net the troop approximately $25? No. My time is way more valuable than $6.25/hours. I’d sooner write you a check for $25 than waste 4 hours of my valuable time. "
Next time, I’m coming back as a man.
shrug Eh, I tramped the neighborhood to sell Girl Scout cookies as a kid, and it never hurt me any. Although, come to think of it, that’s probably why my mom pulled me out after 3 years, 'cause she was sick of it.
I did manage to raise over $80 selling some kind of raffle tickets for my chorus dress as a HS freshman, though. I think I was one of the only people to get my dress paid off, mostly because no one else really gave a shit either way. Come to think of it, I don’t know why our teacher thought we had to have matching dresses, since it’s not like we were performing for anyone but our own friends and family.
I just received my official first fund raising pack for our son’s kindergarten.
It is crap, pure and simple.
I refuse to buy any of it.
Our daughter’s preschool (nonprofit) does pizza kits. We have to buy or donate at least $75 which we don’t mind because these kits are very good. But, we don’t buy anything else for fundraising.
I’ve wondered this and have thought that the lawyers probably got involved and ruined the whole affair
Sorry…flashback to MY school career.
Seriously, though. How about the kids selling whiskey or cigars or meat or something? Having helped 4 kids with school sales, I know for a fact that EVERYBODY has enough decorative scented candles.
OTOH, I need at least 7 more “I Love You This Much” figurines.
Back when I was in high school, the band did a fundraiser every year to pay for their big trip to the Rose Bowl or wherever. They sold crates of Florida grapefruits and oranges. They didn’t do it through a fund-raising company. They had been doing it for years, so they had arrangements with the suppliers in Florida. They cut out the middleman and upped their profits. Everybody was happy to buy because it was a quality item, and because all the profits were going specifically to help the band pay for the trip. It was a win-win situation.
This year I decided to blow off the fundraising. And would you believe, some of my cow-orkers actually asked me to bring the crap in? I didn’t even tell them I had a fundraiser, but they know I have kids, so they expect it around this time of year. I put a note on it which said “Please feel no obligation to participate”, and got back a grand total of four orders. Not enough for the kids to get any prizes, too bad.
My kids’ school also sends home little book catalogs every month from Scholastic and other companies. This is somewhat better, but it still causes a lot of friction at my house, so I have had to rule those out as well. My daughter doesn’t seem to understand that you don’t have to buy something every time the opportunity presents itself, and she lives in fear that on delivery day, everyone in class will get something except her. I offer to take her to a bookstore where they have a better selection, but it’s not a book she wants. She just wants to recieve a book at the same time as all the other kids.:rolleyes:
I can understand how she feels, especially if the other kids tease her if she doesn’t get a book. IME, those fliers usually have some cheaply printed paperbacks (of quality stories) that cost under $1.00. This is what I’ve let my kids buy in the past. Or, I’ll give them a limit of, say, $5.00, to spend in that catalog. If they choose one pricier book, or more cheap ones, I haven’t spent a large amount of money, and it encourages my kids to read. I have also found, in those catalogs, “clubs”, where you pay something like $4.00 or $5.00 for a couple of books, maybe some stickers, bookmark, whatever is relevant to the theme of the club. Then, you receive a package every month or so for a ridiculously marked-up price, but you can cancel after your first month. I’ve been known to let my kids do this, too; get the first month, which is usually a pretty good deal, then as soon as the first order arrives, I cancel the membership. Not only do my kids get some cool stuff, but they learn a little something about consumerism.
Norinew, you’re absolutely right and I’ll try to do better. 
It does still annoy me that I feel this obligation to buy something every time one of these things comes into the house.
Damn! I love being right!
YMMV, but I have been a consumer of the “Entertainment” coupon book for about two decades now and it has never disappointed me. Why? Well, in my area, they have coupons for the grocery stores. One per month, for each of the major chains. Usually 5 bucks off a $50 or more purchase. If I use the coupons for just one chain I’m saving $60 over the course of one year. If I shop around and hit the sales at various stores and use the coupons for a couple of chains over the course of a year then I save $120. All that over and on top of the other stuff in the Entertainment book.
For the most part I agree that coupon books suck and I totally agree about those damn fund raisers guilt-tripping and pressuring kids into being little salespeople, but I think the Entertainment book is the exception to the rule. I don’t know what kind of deals they make to schools who sell them as fundraisers, but on my end of the transaction I’ve found they are well worth it. Of course I happen to live in a major metropolitan area with a Entertainment book targeted to this area and local merchants, so I may get more value out of them than most. As I said YMMV.
Enjoy,
Steven
Uh… at my school you paid for a ticket. I thought that was what everyone did. I think it was like $8/person. Selling bullshit to go to prom is just ridiculous.
When I was on the soccer team*, we had to buy our own uniforms. I didn’t realize that some schools provided that stuff.
To add my own story: My son brought home the packet from “Genevieve” or whatever THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL. I told Dominic that it was bad and explained why, and we threw it away. I won’t do that and won’t let my kid do it.
(He is in 2nd grade and they’ve sent this stuff home the FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL since kindergarten. It’s infuriating.)
*irrelevant detail: I was on the boys’ soccer team. They didn’t have enough to have a girls’ soccer team.
I remember winning Weepuls (and they were called that back in the stone age, too) for selling crap in elementary school.
I don’t remember where I got it, but I have a Weepul sitting on top of my monitor. I love Weepuls
I’m jealous of all you people who are allowed to donate money.
At my school, this was forbidden, as it was ‘unfair’ to students who’s families couldn’t come up with cash. Since they had no choice but to sell, so did everyone.
My sophomore year in high school, my french class planned a trip to france. The trip was $1500 per person, and we had to raise that money. We started with selling candy, wrapping paper, and other crap. My mother called our teacher and said that she’d rather just pay for my ticket-- the answer was no. I would sell, or I wouldn’t go. (Prom was the same deal-- because some people wouldn’t be able to pay for a ticket outright–$150 a couple-- everyone had to sell in order to go)
On other occasions this happened again-- the school refused to accept donations, which I personally think I crazy. Are they under the delusion that hard work is what gets those kids top-seller prizes? It’s not-- it’s whose parents work in the biggest office. (Top seller when I was growning up was a girl I knew whose dad was union head at the local ford plant). My father owns his own business, and has always felt it was grossly inapropriate to sell to his employees. As an adult I respect this greatly, but as a kid it was the bane of my existance.
The saddest thing was, this school was constantly strapped for funds (we never had enough books, and the school computers were still Apple IIe’s when I graduated in 1997), with many of the students coming from low-income families. In their attempts to be fair, they refused donations of money, or much needed items like computers, if they came directly from students’ parents. They were basically screwing themselves out of money. For example, For prom, student is required to sell, say 200 candy bars at $1 apeice. Her parents don’t want her going door to door, can’t sell them at work, so they call up and say, “don’t give us any candy, here’s $200”. School says no, that’s not fair. You MUST sell the candy. So Dad says fine, they take 200 bars and he gives them out to his employees and/or trashes them. Writes a check for $200. But now, instead of getting $200, the school get’s $80, and there’s a lot of wasted chocolate. The parents just made a $120 ‘donation’ to the candy vendor.
My family did this every year, and it drove my dad insane. (though it made his employees happy, they got free chocolate)
We did the Scholastic books when I was in parochial school, too. I got a LOT of great, really cheap books that way-I still have my tattered copy of To Kill a Mockingbird from the book sales.
Obsidian, to not accept donations is just flat out stupid. I’d have raised ten kinds of hell before I would allow them to exclude my kid from prom because he didn’t sell candy bars in lieu of just paying thirty bucks. Lower income kids can’t mow lawns or babysit? Give me a break.
As far as the Entertainment book, I love these books. If you call ahead of time using an Entertainment rate, you can save a bundle on hotels. In fact, I’m going to Maui in the spring and booked an oceanview room that retails for $459/night for $213/night. AAA discount was $338/night and their best internet rate was $350/night. I saved over $700 using the book.
I also use the Entertainment book for movie passes to the local chain cinema. Pay $6.00/ticket vs. $9.00/ticket at the window. They have never refused an Entertainment pass, even within 2 weeks of the premier.
I also enjoy the Scholastic book clubs. The books are highly discounted. You can get the entire “Little House” series for $20, for instance. Retail is something like $45. I tell my kids at the beginning of the year that I’ll give them $20 towards books and they can use it however they’d like. If they want to use all twenty bucks up the first go round, that’s fine. But I won’t give anymore.
One slight rant is that Scholastic sells “club” memberships. My 4th grader signed up for one not knowing what it was. I found out when I got a notice in the mail thanking her for the order and noting that her first “installment” of the Magic University would be sent shortly. I immediately wrote back with a CANCEL note and the very next DAY they sent the first installment to the tune of $14.95. I made a trip to the post office and shipped it back priority mail with a huge red mark that says “Cancel!”
Within 2 weeks, they shipped ANOTHER package with a bill for $30 (first and second sets). Instead of mailing them back a payment, I sent them the most scathing letter, saying that I thought it was terrible that they used children in this way, that she didn’t understand what she was signing up for, that she was a minor and had no authority to enter into a contract, and that I returned the first package, on my dime, and 2 cancellation notes within 24 hours of receiving the first unwanted package. I wrote that I considered myself relieved of any obligation to pay and any sets sent subsequent to the first would be considered GIFTS. Never heard back from them.
Bastids.