I have read all the past year's posts in this section. Thanks to all of you for the wealth of information. It prompted me to look on some of the suggested websites, particularly, KABOOM. I would like to know if anyone out there has experience with fundraising and developing a plan for a new playset for a very small school. We have only 260 children, K-6. I'm not sure the "build it yourself" model is our ideal type of project. Anyone have experience on a much smaller scale that they'd like to share. I'm open to any suggestions or ideas, thank you!

Our school just completed a project in which we added various pieces to our playground in addition to a paved play area. Total cost 45,000 and one year for fundraising and installation.
We used Playworld Systems and the installer they recommended. As a PTO, we did not want to accept the liability of any accidents so we had a company do the installation.

Since the students will benefit and will enjoy the new set, have them as involved as possible in the fundraising. A dance-a-thon would be great for this age. Have a parent or local HS student with equipment come over on a school day and schedule the classes throughout the day. Have each child bring in their pledges and they dance for their time slot. You can give them a 4oz bottle of water as they exit for their "hard work"! We raised 10K for our first fundraiser.
Apply for grants with Lowe's and Hamburger Helper as well. It doesn't hurt to try!

We have approximately 320 children and we just raised nearly $40k to buy and install our playground. We used Playworld and we had volunteers there to install it. Playworld sent 2 men (a supervisor and assistant) that we paid for but they over saw the whole operation. We had about 20 volunteers over 1 1/2 days and it went off without a hitch.

Check out gametime.com. They have resources on their site for grants, etc. We've had fundraisers, grants and we're still not done. We've added to the playground in stages to make the whole goal seem easier to achieve. We're almost done!

We are in the process of raising funds (100K) for our new playground. (500+ students) Since October of '06, we have raised 40K. Our parents are awesome. Some ideas that we did: selling bricks for a walkway to fun, raffled off a big screen tv at $10 a ticket, walk-a-thon to be held in October of '07. The kids are becoming involved by change for a change-putting jars in the classroom and everyoe dumping their loose change in. We alo have one in the main office.
We have 13 schools in our district, each having to raise all the money by themselves if they wish to replace theri playgrounds. My best advice-
DON"T GIVE UP!!! It might take a while to realize your dreams, but in the end, it will all be worth it. Good Luck!