Hello everyone! We normally have a Halloween type carnival for our kids and as a fundraiser. In the past two years we've lost a lot of parent support and volunteers. Last year we had to close down carnival games during the last half of the carnival because volunteers never showed up. So this year we've decided to change gears to a "Harvest Fest" instead. Does anyone have any ideas that do not include carnival games. In other words, we are working with a very limited amount of volunteers. So far we've come up with:

Pumpkin Decorating\Painting
Costume Contest
Pony Rides or Petting Zoo (if we can get it reasonable)
Bounce House

We do have a group of parents who do a haunted house, and if they are interested in doing that, we will have it again. Other than that I am at a loss of ideas.

Thank you in advance!

Tina

For our harvest festival we get a pumpkin for each student(plus a couple extras) and have each class come in one by one to decorate them. This is a during school event so the teachers help supervise thier own classes, which is a big help. After they decorate thier pumpkin we have temporary tattoos, a small goodie bag, cookies and juice.

I enjoy doing a small event like this, it's simple and easy. We are also a very low income school so giving each child a pumpkin really helps out a lot of families, the pumpkins are small, a little smaller than a basketball, so that they are easy to transport home. We ask local pumpkin patches for donations of pumpkins, even if they only donate 30 pumpkins after we go to 3 or 4 our order has almost been filled. We do ask parents to come in and help during thier childs class time, they are allowed to bring in thier other children so I think that helps most of them. As a thank you the siblings of school children get a pumpkin and the other goodies too.

*on a quick side note, try to keep decorating easy, we tried paint and it got super messy really quick and some teachers were upset, we now stick to stickers and we are thinking about glue on items*

Hi Just1Mom,

Looks like you've got some great ideas to start with and I loved the pumpkin decorating idea from mamain06!

You also might find some fun ideas on this thread on our message boards:

www.ptotoday.com/boards/17-fundraising/7...imit=6&start=150

And check out these files on our File Exchange. There are templates for flyers and letters to vendors (for donations) for Fall Festivals as well as docs with ideas for games and events:

www.ptotoday.com/filesharing/category/74-carnivals-a-fairs

Good luck with your event!

Rose C.
Community Manager

We had a DJ last year with a costume contest, pumpkin decorating contest, haunted house on our stage, games and food. We did wristbands and sold for $6.00 a piece. We sold over 200 wristbands. This year we would like to get rid of games.

Thanks everyone! We have to stay away from the games as well, when you have a small amount of parents and teachers that are willing to help, it's just too hard. Last year 3/4 of our second "shift" was a no show. We ended up closing down games etc.

Thanks again for your ideas!

Tina

This is a great time of year for a chili cookoff. Consider adding that! People can bring crock pots of chili and you can either serve in bowls or small cups so people can sample them and then vote on a fave.

We did a schoolwide (small school of 250 kids) donut on a string eating "contest". We divided people into groups and the fastest group to eat all their donuts won. It was fun to watch the older kids help the little kids!

Hope these help.