I am a new PTO president in a distict with little parent involvement. Our organization is partly to blame for not offering a chance for parents and teachers to be involved so support and interest in PTO has diminished.

Increased parent and teacher involvement is our major goal. However, we have also been told by the board that we can no longer have any door-to-door sales or any fundraiser that encourages this type of sales. Our major fundraisers in the past have been selling items from a catalogue like candy, wrapping paper etc. We have made close to $10,000 in the past on these sales so we really have not had to worry about funds. That will change this year.

I need some fundraising ideas that don't reguire door-to-door sales. Basically something that can be done at school or through a send home order form to parents. We do not have that many school events for parents to have an opportunity to buy things so we were considering trying to sell things at the school during certain periods like for a week after Thanksgiving after school. I am not sure what to sell.

Can you recommend a good sale item for an on-site sale, or events that could raise money and increase parent/teacher involvement.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.
danielleconti-owens@mchsi.com

We are going to sell pies and have them delivered to the school week of Thanksgiving. We will have a pickup time for the parents to come in Not sure where you are from but I food Market (not sure ifvthat is the real name) I heard is a good fundraiser we were going to do that this year but they pulled out of mass.

Have you thought of recycling printer cartridges? What about a basket raffle? We do this every other year. It is a big money maker. Each class donates things to make a basket. The teacher picks a theme and then sends home a notice to have parents send in one or two things for the basket. They do different things. Some are like... candles, snow fun items (we live in New England), family fun night activites, a "boy basket" and a "girl" basket, movie night, etc. They have a lot of fun making up the baskets, wrapping in just plastic wrap (saran wrap). Then we sell raffle type tickets and the day and night of the raffle the baskets are put on display, with coffee cans in front of them and people put their tickets in. We all meet at the auditorium for the selection of each basket's winner. We also sell refreshments in the cafeteria and sometimes local businesses donate things that we have silent auctions for, like a stay at the local hotel or a visit to the spa. We do VERY well at that.
We also do McDonald's night at the local McD's. The teachers and PTO volunteer to work a "shift" during a two hour time (McD employees are still there then too, showing us what to do)and we get 15% of all sales during that time. That can be a big hit if you are sure to remind peopl of it on the day of the activity. We didn't last year and it wasn't as successful. The year before however, it was so crowded that you could NOT get in to make your order for 45 minutes! It was crazy! I think that was another reason why we didn't do as well. Nobody wanted to wait that long for food. We also do Scholastic book fairs, the Elf Shop at Christmas time(not a fundraiser, but fun for the kids). We are looking into a Waldenbooks fundraiser. During a one or two week time frame anybody from our school who comes in with the coupon and buys books, we get 10 or 15% of the sales. We were thinking of doing it twice this year. Before Christmas time and at the end of the year when the reading lists are sent out.
Anyway, these are just a few of the ideas we have had. Hope something helps.

I forgot to mention that a scouple of weeks before Mother's Day we send home an order form for flowering plants. A local nursery takes our order, delivers them to the school the Saturday before Mother's Day and everybody comes and picks them up between 9 and noon. They are pre-paid and it was SO simple. Worked out wonderfully, this was our first year, but we will definately be doing it again!