Our teachers are not going to receive any money this year due to budget cuts. They will have to spend their own money for things for their rooms. PTO would like to help. In the past we have had a fall carnival - teachers did their own games and prizes, pto sold tickets, and both parties received money. Some teachers complained that they did not make enough money for the work they put in. Our school is k -6 with about 960 students. Any suggestions on how to make the carnival more successful or any other money making ideas. PTO usually does 2 big fundraisers for the general fund, so we need something different and a little smaller for the teachers. HELP!

Why not give your teachers some of the money derived from your fund raising projects that you already have? Our PTO used to give $30 to each teacher at the beginning of the year for classroom supplies. Assuming you have 40+ teachers, even $40 each is only $1,600.

Another option is to offer the teachers a small percent of their classroom sales (5% sounds good) back to them. The higher the sales, the more money they get back. This would help motivate them to achieve higher sales as they share in the profits.

Teachers are so busy that they need something that will earn money in the background, without them having to manage lists, signup sheets, checks, envelopes, etc. One option to consider is a logo apparel website. There is one called www.logoprideapparel.com that is completely free, offers a variety of clothing items with delivery to the home, and pays a fundraising incentive of $2 per item sold. Parents can order year-round, and you could designate all the proceeds to go to the teachers. For 960 students x 4 items per year (per family) would be almost $8000 that you could divide between your teachers for supplies or as a gift. I have ordered from this site before, and I liked the variety of golf shirt styles and colors - a shirt I actually enjoy wearing.

Check out adoptaclassroom.com. We've used this program in the past to solicit small donations from parents of the classrooms (like 15-20 dollars) and then adopted the classrooms giving the teachers 500 dollars at Christmas as the family's Christmas present and they get to spend how they care too.

No receipts, no muss...take a look...one year we raised 17,000 dollars that went directly to the teachers.

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Here is a company http://www.fundraisingtogether.com which offers fresh roasted coffee to help schools raise funds. It is a ready to go program where the fundraising coordinator downloads all the forms online and everyone takes orders. The Fundraising Together Community Blend is a stock product or they can create a custom label with your schools mascot/logo and blend name. They also offer a coffee gift program which is perfect for teacher gifts since most everyone loves coffee. All orders are shipped free within the 48 continental states.

Also look at the BoxTops website, they have a new program for teachers as well. (You may need to go through your BoxTops coordinator.)