Ideas for PTFA fundraising

lindos90

Hi, quite new to this so be gentle with me!;)
Ive tried to get involved with the pta at my boys school, I would agree very clicky, complain they have lack of fresh ideas and no volunteers, then when new parents offered ideas, they were shot down and pta consistantly did not take people up on offers of help, I think sometimes the comittee at our school like to have control, reluctant to deligate, but then moan about apathetic parents, sometimes you just cant win!!!!! I have continued to attend the meetings as I think things/people may change and want to help make my kids school a better place!

I agree with previous posts that ptas can get too focused on raising money and forget the fun/community bit. One of our best fund raisers in my opinion, (and most enjoyed by the kids) was a matchbox challenge, we sent out an empty matchbox to each child with a sponsor form (dont groan, stick with me...) the challenge was to fit as many different small items in the box as they could (different as in not 200000 grains of sand/salt!!) the kids enjoyed collecting crazy stuff like a toe nail clipping, a stamp, a seed, a tooth....they got sponsored (ie 2p for every item), and wrote the total number of items on the front of the sponsor sheet, and then listed all the items on the back of the form, to help them get the sonsor money. Collected the named matchboxes, sheets and sponsor money in usual way, found the top 3 or 4 with the most items for a prize, (giving a quick count of the items in these boxes just to check there was no cheating going on) I would also say decide if the boxes are to be returned after, and make this clear with the parents in the covering letter, as we had some complaints about that as some items were needed back!
It was amazing what kids found to put in, it really got them thinking, and some parents took it as a personal challenge too, it got quite competative!

Also collect old photo film holders (local processing shops usually glad to save them,) then visit your friendly sweet shop/market stall who may save you some large empty plastic sweet jars, each class has a sweet jar containing enough film holders for each child, inside each holder is a 'message in a bottle' asking nicely for some small change/coppers to fill the holder and be returned to school to be tipped into the plastic jar.

The film holders are also good (if you can get loads and loads) as a stall for a fayre, where they can be put in a bin or similar, 20p a go, some have small prizes in etc, I love to think of ways to make fun and money out of little outlay and use recycled stuff as well, any more ideas to share???

Themed dressing up days/non uniform days also go down well

PS anyone know of a good idea for using plastic bottle lids, Ive been saving 100s as our pastic bottle recycling does not accept the tops