Fundraisers: paying for educational extras
Published: November 21, 2010
SEBRING – they have products to sell, a marketing plan, sales goals and a sales force, but it’s not big business — it’s the business of supporting school athletics, clubs and organizations.
Before students depart on special extracurricular trips, purchase musical instruments or buy cameras, books, supplies and awards, they hold fundraisers galore from car washes, rummage sales and barbecues to selling everything from cookie dough to Christmas grams.
At the beginning of the school year, each Highlands District School lists its potential school fundraisers for approval by the district office.
Sebring High School covers nearly all bases with a list of 114 possibilities from sales of afghans, smoked sausage and mouse pads, to car smashing, window washing and donkey basketball.
Hill-Gustat Middle School’s 150 agriculture students are starting to sell plants including begonias, pentas, dianthus and impatiens. the students transplanted small plugs in the school’s greenhouse into 6-inch containers.
Seventh-grader Chance Feichtinger shared the marketing plan.
“We will talk to our relatives and they will talk to their friends and the word will just spread,” he said.
After starting with 2,000 plugs, about 1,900 have survived, which they hope to sell at 60 cents a piece by the Christmas break, said ag teacher Ashley Gillilan. Here second-semester students will have a similar plant sale.
The ag kids are learning about the planting process and learning about the nursery business because they will look into how much was spent on the project and figure how much profit was made, she said.
“Usually we make between $800 and $1,000 the entire year on it, depending on the weather,” Gillilan said.
The profit is used to buy more plants with the remaining going into the FFA fund to help pay the cost of attending competitions.
Hill-Gustat seventh-grader George Livingston recently sold 25 chicken barbecue tickets to support school athletics.
He is not on a school team, but he had a big incentive to sell a lot of tickets.
“I was trying to do it for the prize at the end because the person who sold the most got an iPod touch and it was looking pretty good,” Livingston said.
Someone sold like 30; so close, he exclaimed.
Hill-Gustat Middle School Assistant Principal Margie Rhoades said the school’s entire student body had the opportunity to sell cookie dough and magazines through a company that fills orders online. About 225 students participated.
This was the school’s major fundraiser for the year.
“We try not to do too much because of everybody’s economic situation right now,” Rhoades said.
Those who sold two or more orders attended a 45-minute show Friday presented by the Ron Thomas X-Games group. those who sold five or more had the opportunity to win cash by shooting play stuffed bulls into a barrel.
About $5,000 was raised in two weeks, which will help fund behavior and academic rewards.
The academic rewards include trips to the movies and bowling.
“We have to pay for the buses and we have to pay for the food and things like that,” Rhoads said. “With the state’s cut back in funding for schools … we’ve been able to continue our programs by this fundraising.”
Kindergarteners
the kindergarten Learning Center’s students walked in teams for half-hour periods Friday morning in front of the school.
Principal Andrew Lethbridge called the annual walk-a-thon the school’s main fundraiser for the year.
The event is sponsored by the Parent/Teacher Organization (PTO).
Parents pledge money for their child, but not per lap, just a flat donation for the school, he said. at the end of the walk students receive a snack and a snow cone.
Each year the amount raised by the event is a little different, but Lethbridge remembers it bringing in about $3,000 last year.
The money goes toward different things such as two years ago a playground covering was purchased and installed to alleviate some of the heat, Lethbridge said.
Other PTO projects included putting benches in front of the school and buying the snow cone machine and different things the school wouldn’t be able to do otherwise, he noted.
Carnegie Hall
Sebring High parent Tammy Hancock remembers selling candy bars, candles and other small things when she was in school.
With two daughters who graduated from Sebring High and a third in her senior year, Hancock has been involved with numerous fundraisers over the years including the current effort for the Sebring High chorus’s trip to new York City/Carnegie Hall.
“I’m in charge of a chicken barbecue that the Sebring Firemen have been gracious enough to cook the chicken for us so the kids are trying to sell tickets for that,” she said.
The school’s chorus usually takes the trip to new York City to perform at the famous concert hall every other year.
This year there are 57 students raising money for the trip, which will cost each child about $1,400.
“That’s quite a bit that they have to raise if they can’t afford to pay it personally, but we do try to give them as many opportunities to fund-raise for the money as possible,” Hancock said. there have been one or two fundraisers each month.
Speaking about her daughters’ extracurricular activities, Hancock said, “Whatever they have been involved with it usually involves some type of fundraising, unfortunately, because the schools cannot supplement all this.
“I don’t know if they ever did, but the kids just do more nowadays.”
When she attended Sebring High School, students didn’t go to new York and the cheerleading squad didn’t compete in national championships and things like that, Hancock said.
Minimizing fundraisers
Lake Placid High School started a voluntary class dues program about four years ago to reduce the time and effort put into class fundraising — such as the freshman class.
Teacher Melissa Sohn said, “What we found is the same kids sell the tickets and the same parents do the fundraising.”
Students are asked to donate $20 their freshman year, which gets them a T-shirt, then $20 as sophomores, $25 as juniors and $15 their senior year.
“Most parents would rather write a $20 check than sell barbecue tickets and candles and wrapping paper,” Sohn said. “We’ve been pretty successful; we have about 50 percent of the kids per class who will pay their dues every year.”
Those who don’t pay the dues will have to pay the full price for certain events such as the prom while those who paid their dues receive a discount.
Those who paid their dues went to prom last year for $10 as opposed to $75 so it kind of helps the students budget their money throughout the four years, Sohn said. It helps them go to grad bash and get their senior T-shirt, because that money is already in a bank account.
Keeping it simple
Avon Park Middle School student government sponsor Margaret Voskian is keeping the fundraising simple this school year.
“I have always kept our (student government association) fundraisers on campus and student friendly [this year] because it has been very hard to sell more expensive items outside of school,” she said. “Last year we sold candles and the year before that we sold cookie dough, but both did not yield much of a profit due to the expense of the items.”
This year students are selling “smenciles” (scented pencils) on campus as well as “Go Devils” red arm bands to promote school pride.
For students it’s mini-lessons in economics and marketing and it’s learning to work toward a goal dime by dime and dollar by dollar – it’s school fundraising.
Highlands Today reporter Marc Valero can be reached at 863-386-5826 or
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