Raising school trip funds
Last year, in the UK, when it was time for our son to go on his class trip we got a note home from the school that said (basically) “if you want your child to go on this trip, please send a cheque to school for £40″ or something like that.
How different are things in America! Yesterday we got all the information about their class trip “fund raiser”. Each child is expected to sell frozen food to help raise money for their class trip. The flyer has things ranging from pepperoni balls to cheesecakes and it all looks quite tasty, actually (well, it would in the brochure, wouldn’t it?). Hubby is finding it all a bit strange, though. The school (thoughtfully?) provided a “buy-out” option, whereby we can just send in $80 for him and not sell the stuff, which seems a bit like blackmail, really. And if our son can’t manage the $250 in sales, do we have to make up the difference?
It is highly unlikely that he will manage the required sales, as both hubby and I are unemployed…we don’t have a lot of spare money flying around for frozen cheesecakes and even more importantly, we can’t take the order form to work to drum up sales from all our unsuspecting co-workers! Not sure how this is going to work out.
The whole thing has brought back lots of memories for me, though. I remember selling everything from Girl Scout cookies (popular) to cleaning products (not popular and terrible at actually cleaning anything). All in all, it is a difference from the UK that I had never thought about. There are a lot of those.
Harumph grumble grouch!
Tags: blackmail, fund raising, school trips
October 15th, 2008 at 18:21
Put me down for an order of peperoni balls.
October 15th, 2008 at 18:42
Dennis…that is very, very kind of you but the entry wasn’t written to try and solicit money from anyone reading it (I’ve checked with my wife, it definitely wasn’t!). It is true I have a semi-issue with this fund raising lark, but that’s more a cultural difference than a real ‘problem’. Also, though unemployed at present we are very fortunate in that we can stump up the $80 if it comes to it. So we can’t and won’t plead poverty.
Having said all that, if you would really like some frozen pepperoni balls then let me know offline using the “Contact us directly” link on the site - they are $10 for 15 of them (apparently 2oz each ball…Stanganelli’s). I’m not sure how we then manage the handover, but I’ve got plenty of time to act as a delivery service! (Though apparently they don’t become available until 21st November. It all seems complicated to me, but then what do i know?
Many thanks again, Steve