Fundraising Ideas
Charity Week
Submitted by the Ovid-Elsie H.S. Student Council, 989-834-2271
Charity Week was a huge success for our student council. This was the first year we tried it and we raised over $2500. Our events included a change war between each of the grades, an annoying song played all week, bake sale, Jail n' Bail, Concessions from a home basketball game, and finally it all led up to the our annual "A Night at the Oscars" Ceremony featuring the Mr. Marauder Pageant. For the change war you need to make sure that you have a good central location to place your collection jugs. Create a good incentive to get the kids to participate. If your incentive is an amount of money to go in their class fund (this is what we did) then you should get a good amount of participation. Most classes are raising money for when prom comes around. The next thing we did is the annoying song. We chose a song that we thought would annoy kids so they would have to pay us to shut it off. Unfortunately for us we chose a song that everybody liked!! We chose "Blue" if you choose the right song then it should work well. Make sure you have a place to drop of money when they are ready to pay. You can also send people around with collection jugs at lunch. Then we held a Jail N’ Bail. This was a ton of fun. First you need make a mock warrant that you will sell. Kids can sign up for whatever class period they wanted as long as there was not a test during that hour. We made a limit of only being able to sign up for two class periods. Then you need to find a place in the school you can turn into a jail cell. Fill it with TV’s, games, food, pop, lava lamps, chairs, couches, and anything else you can think of to make it a fun place. Then we held a bake sale. Each of the student council members were responsible for bringing in some sort of baked good and then we sold everything for 50 cents. We set up before school and at lunchtime. Our final event was the Oscars/ Mr. Marauder Ceremony. This is our annual superlative award evening. We just recently added our Mr. Marauder pageant to the evening, which makes it a lot more fun and interesting. After the ceremony we had a semi-formal dance. This was a great week for us and hopefully it can be for you too. We are presenting at the SVSU Regional Conference if you would like more information or you can call the school at the number provided. Good Luck!
Going Once
Submitted by the Lincoln Park H.S. Student Council, 313.389.0234
This is an auction. You will have the students in your council or group sing up and the teachers/ staff will bid on them. We start the bidding at 5 dollars. The students do various activities for the teachers, such as cleaning there room, take out the trash. Its money well spend and earned for your council.
National Relief Network Bowl-A-Thon
To raise money for the National Relief Foundation our chapter sponsored a bowl-a-thon. A chairperson, first, had to contact a bowling alley to set a date. Then a pledge form was created and given to chapter members. Pledges could be collected by each pin knocked down or a set donation. The day of the event members brought their pledge money and started bowling. A bowl-a-thon is a simple, yet fun fundraiser. A "pitfall" to the project was that the pledges done per pin knocked down were hard to collect the day of the event. It is easier and faster to collect the money in one day. We raised $130.00 for the state charity of the National Relief Network. If you have any questions you can contact Debra Lerash, North Huron High School Adviser.
Trading Classes
We needed a fundraiser that we could do quick with little work and little planning. After some though we came up with copying the same idea as the television show Trading Spaces on TLC. We put out a memo to all of the teachers asking them FIRST to volunteer to raise money in their classes to benefit the Leukemia Foundation, and SECOND to volunteer to have their classroom made over if they were deemed the winner of the competition.
We received responses from 25 teachers who were willing to participate. We provided them with a "paint can" collection can and gave them one week to raise money from the students in their classes. We collected the money each night to update a large bulletin board to drive the competition. At the end of the week we raised over $4200.00. The two winning teachers were given the opportunity to TRADE CLASSES and redecorate each others’ rooms. We gave them each an art teacher to act as their designers, and provided them our woodshop teacher to be their "handyman". Student Council gave each classroom a $150 budget to paint, buy organizational supplies, alternate lighting, build bookshelves, etc. This budget was NOT taken from the donations; this was taken directly from the Student Council budget in order to maximize the donation to the Leukemia Foundation.
At the end of our "FUN"draiser we donated money to a worthwhile cause and changed a boring chemistry lab room into a tropical paradise and an English classroom into a positively functional Feng-Shui classroom.
Problems: We allowed 5 hours to be the deadline that the rooms needed to be redecorated in. This is a fair amount of time if your designers are reasonable in their expectations. This was not enough time for one of our designers, which dragged the project out over a whole other week. This can be problematic if you need to utilize the entire classroom immediately. Contact Amber Bronson, Eisenhower High School Adviser for questions.
ROCHESTAPALOOZA
Rochestapalooza is a musical fund-raiser sponsored by the Rochester High School Student Council. The event is held to showcase bands and musical acts within the school. Admission is$3.00 and Student Council members sell refreshments. Spectators come to enjoy themselves and the musical talents of their school.
Nickel War
Most schools have penny wars but we changed it a little to bring in more of a profit for the annual MASC state charity. For us, nickels are positive and all other money is negative. Some other fund-raisers that we put on are:
- Toys-4-Tots
- Relay for Life
- The Aids Walk
- Canned Food Drive- Salvation Army
- St. Jude’s Marathon
Between all these fund-raisers, our school will have raised about $10,000 over 9,000 canned goods, and over 450 new toys during the 2001-2002 school year.
Mail Delivery for Charity
Determined to come upon a brilliant and impressive fundraiser for the Pretty Lake Burn Camp, the MASC state charity we asked for suggestions from our Student Council officers and representatives. We heard many creative and superb ideas, before one of our officers suggested we do an activity called mailman.
Students in the middle school (and high school too) regularly write notes to friends. But what happens when a teacher catches on? The note might be confiscated, thrown away or worse yet read aloud. We decided to get the principal’s permission for one week to play mailman and get those notes passed legally! We made stationery with a Student Council stamp, the name and address of the recipient. The recipient’s address was his or her sixth hour class. We would have our Student Council officers or representatives volunteer to pass out the notes during sixth hour, the last ten minutes of the school day. For this activity we would charge anywhere from fifty cents to a dollar. A dollar paid for a response to be delivered. All of our proceeds would fund the burn camp. This was a good way to have fun and help others at the same time.
The Couch Raffle
The Couch Raffle is an easy project for any student club to put on. Its purpose is to raise money for your club while keeping the student body involved. This fundraiser is ideal during basketball or football season. The basic idea of the Couch Raffle is selling tickets to the students, and the winner is allowed to choose two friends to sit with him or her on the couch during a football or basketball game. During the game, the winners will be served free pizza, soda and popcorn.
The first step to getting the project started is to inform the student body of it. This can be done by describing the fundraiser with posters for the hallways at school or by making announcements in the school bulletin. Then, the council needs to sell the raffle tickets before and after school or during lunch hour. This should be done one week prior to the scheduled event.
As an incentive for the students to buy a ticket, keep track of the number of tickets sold to each class. The class that purchased the most ticket can then be rewarded. For example, they could watch a movie on afternoon instead of having classes. This could keep ticket sales up, and the students more excited about the fundraiser. The cost of the tickets can vary, but the ideal price would be $1.00 per ticket or $2.50 for three.
On the actual day of the game, a few members of the council will need to set up the couch on the sidelines, and get the refreshments together. The council could obtain a couch from a family in the school. The pizza and other refreshments could be paid for by the profits from the raffle, or hopefully could even be donated by various people.
The winner of the Couch Raffle and the winning class can be announced a few minutes prior to the starting line-up at the game. He or she can then pick two friends to sit with him or her on the couch. Different members of the council can serve the food and drinks to them.
After the game, members of the council should clean up any trash, and return the couch to its owner. You could do this raffle for more than one game of the season, just be sure to find a place to store the couch. Within the next following days, the council should write thank you notes to the family who donated the couch and to anyone who might have donated refreshments. It would also be a good idea to thank all of the students who participate in the project during school announcements, and inform the student body of the profits earned. The Couch Raffle is a great fundraiser that helps the council and can also be fun for the students to be involved with.
Charity Olympics
Each Snowcoming, our school holds our major fundraiser for the MASC state charity. An Olympic type event is held in the gym between five teams, frosh, soph, juniors, seniors, and staff. They participate in games, and obstacle courses for points. A strong rivalry is developed between the classes that leaves them burning for the next year. Donations are collected form area businesses and tickets are sold for 1.00. Each ticket will get your name in the raffle, and you need at least one to get into the door. FUN FUN FUN activity.
Mr. Ace Contest
In my school, every fall we have a Mr. Ace contest. Any senior guy who wants to participate dresses up like a girl and competes in a talent show, swimsuit competition, and a beauty contest. They charge $2 to get in and the winner is crowned Mr. Ace. It's a good way to raise money and it's lots of fun.
Crush Can Sale - Valentines Day
Submitted by St. Clair H.S., 810.676.1700
"Crush" is a fundraiser that St. Clair high school did for "Liberty Kids" on Valentines Day. The Student body could send "Crush" the soda to there friends, crushes, boyfriend/girlfriend. Easch color of soda represented a different level of the crush. Tat you were friends, Orange Crush ment that the sender had a Crush on the recevier and Red crush ment that the sender loved the recever. When sending a "Crush" the sender could put insurance on the soda so that the sender could not fide out who sent them the crush. The day after Valentines day the people who receved "Crush"'s could find out who sent it to them for $0.25. If the insurance was placed on it, then no one would ever know who sent the "Crush" . All proceds went to "Liberty Kids" Foundation.
Submitted by Menominee H.S.
Your student council can sell cans of "Crush" the orange pop made by Pepsi. They are sold during lunches and then half way through the week you should count all the bottles sold. Take the number sold (i.e., 20) and double it (40); then order that number straight from the Pepsi and they usually give schools a nice discount. Our school sold them for 50 cents a can. Made about $2,000 for Menominee H.S.
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& Michigan Association of Secondary School Principals