PTO Today

Oh middle school - it's a mixed bag. The kids are so fickle, and the focus groups get so political.

You might want to try (depending on time of the year):

Mardi-Gras beads (with school colors)

Photography booth with a celebrity (solicit help from camera or AV Club)
(some of the larger party stores or Spencer Gifts have cardboard cut outs
of celebrities Elvis, Austin Powers, Shrek, or some pop star?).

Flavored popcorn (in case student council doesn't want to do popcorn - you can make it ahead of time and bag it up) cinnamon, apple, cherry - More recipes here from the Popcorn Board Recipes with Popcorn

Air Brush or Henna Tatoos? - I recall a place where you could rent the equipment and tatoo stencils. Second thought - - Forget Henna - it's smelly and messy.

Wii booth - have a Wii demo booth. Bring the equipment along and an easy program (bowling) have the kids pay a couple bucks for "X" number of minutes to play.

Good luck - that's all I can think of without turning it into a shark frenzy - the hormones are running high and feelings get hurt quickly at the Middle school level. Simple is best.



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We sold raffle tickets for iTunes and mall gift cards. $1 a ticket. Be sure to scale the amount of the gc to the amount of students attending so you actually make money. We first tried by raffling 4 - $25 iTunes gc and only sold 69 tickets total- so we lost money. (Only 1/3 of the students purchased tickets) Next time we'd raffle just one gift card.


We are a Middle School with a Non-Active PTC for the last 5 years. That is until a few of us have stepped forward! We are trying to find ways to raise money and find that in MIDDLE SCHOOL, it is much different as far as involvment goes compared to elementry school.

We wanted to sell 'something' at the monthly school dances. However, the head of the Student Council voiced her opinion that it is how SHE raises money. Therefore, we would like to find various items we can sell. We had thought about GLOW NECKLACES/STICKS - but they do not turn the lights down.

We are dealing with Middle Schoolers and the Student Council head already sells Soda, Water, Popcorn, Snowcones and Candy. Not sure if we can do hotdogs - due to keepingthem warm.

Ideas please!!! Thanks in advance and happy holidays!

We sell prepackages chips, candy, cokes, water and other drinks. Sometimes we sell pizza by the slice. Check out Sam's club for snack ideas!

We sell pizza for $2 per slice. If you get it from Domino's they will let you use the warmer bags if you bring them back that day. We pay $6 and there are 8slices we make $10 per and sell around 20 pizzas. Any leftover pizzas we sell at cost so we don't lose anything.
The last dance we had parents donate baked goods(cookies,brownies,etc.) or prepackaged snack cakes.We had very little left over. I took pictures at an area I set up with a blue background, a white bench, a prelit Christmas tree and some poinsettias. I had no idea how it would turn out but I already had the photo printer and the other items were borrowed. I sold around 50 pictures and I expect to sell more next time since they know what to expect now. I bought inexpensive picture holding Christmas cards to put the pictures in. Cost was around 60 cents and I sold them for $3 each. I would suggest having more than one printer and camera so someone else can take pictures while the other person is printing a photo.
I'm thinking about slushies for the end of year dance but I still have to work out the logistics. The kids here love slushies.
I agree that middle school is so different. I usually ask my daughter (7th grade) and her friends about ideas I have before I try them, after all they are the ones we need to please. Good luck.
Oh, we also raffled off a blowup snowman donated by the local Walgreens.
We only made $30 but hey it was free and every little bit counts.
Love the Wii idea.

Have a photo station- make a generic back-drop that you can use at all the dances and either add a prop for a holiday theme or some other type of themed prop for each -- Kids love to take pictures, especially the girls-- charge 2.00 a picture and you can print them at Costco, Sam's or CVS-- the 1st 2 printing pictures are .15 cents each and CVS is .25-- .19 cents if over 50. You can also add a border and have them delivered the following week-- just promote that it's available and the cost so the kids can bring money to the dance for the pictures

I forgot to add, we've done the photo station at our donuts with dad and muffins with mom event, plus our Halloween Dance and have made between 200.00-300.00 per event for pictures alone. Good luck finding something that works for you.