PTO Today

Our school has wanted to get these for the last three years. The ones that have been approved by the district are $1500 each. Way out of budget.

Does anyone have any suggestions on grants or funding that's available for sports equipment? Or where I should start? Reaching out to the parents is out of the question. We appeal to them for basic needs and this is definitely a luxury item.

No one has requested this of the PTO but we thought it would be a great thing to be able to give the school.

Thanks.

I'm just curious, but why does your school need portable basketball hoops? Can't the children just play basketball in the gym?

You could apply for a grant with Lowe's Home Improvement store. They accept applications twice a year. Hamburger Helper also has grants that they offer schools.

You could run a raffle and have the tickets printed by a local business or high school print shop. We always profit over $2,000 when we have a raffle. We raffle off gift cards to our local grocery store. Parents love our raffle!

Good luck to you!

Try checking with your local sporting goods store. You can purchase really nice ones for around $200 a piece.

I'm curious too. Why do you need portable hoops? then someone is responsible for moving them all the time and you risk damage in the event of weather or vandalism.
Lowe's www.ToolBoxforEducation.com has a grant program, but you will have to wait for the October contest since the February deadline already passed. But if you are looking for something in the near future, what about a Super 50/50. Limited ticket sales $50.00 each ticket. Selling 125 tickets would gross you $6250 and after splitting it with the winner, you get $3125.00. Sell them all around school, town or to relatives all over the US! It's easy money and you will have it before the end of the year. Also, work out something with a local sporting good store as the other poster stated. Maybe get a discount on top of your tax-free perk in exchange for their store name being a sponsor on the ticket. That would reduce the number of ticket you have to sell or the ticket price ($50. in our town is not a difficult sell, but in some towns it is)
But looking long-range, you may want to check out getting permanent hoops outside.

We have tried in the past to get permanent hoops for the playground. The hold up is that our playground property is owned by the park district and they provide all the playground equipment with a handshake agreement that our kids can use it. The black top is ours but the park district said that the balls would be rolling down the hill into their property and for liability reasons they won't allow us to do it. We've been round and round and they said basicly that, if they wanted to, they could remove what little equipment we have, so we stopped pushing. Red tape.

We have an old, way too small, building for 700 students and our maintenance man is used to shuffling things around to accomodate everyone's needs. This would be one of the shufflings.

I've thought about putting jars in the local hot dog/pizza places and just collecting change etc to expand our reach to the community instead of our over-extended parents. There are about five in our immediate school boundaries. Anyone ever tried that?

I also want to get the specifics on the exact hoop that has been approved and see if I can shop around a bit.