PTO Today

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!

Glow items are our big seller, so that's too bad. If you do decide to do hot dogs, you can keep all the hot dogs in large crockpot and just take the buns directly from the bag. That works well and is low fuss.

If you don't feel it's too messy - a hair paint station might be popular. I've never tried it for middle schoolers.

Your best bet might be to have a raffle items where the kids spend $1 to put a ticket in the jar of choice and your draw one item ever so often, saving the biggest one for last.

Also, perhaps you could survey some of the kids. No telling what creative ideas they might come up with.

We had our dances around dinner time and served pizza. The local pizzeria sold us pizzas for 5 bucks each and we sold them to the kids for .75 a slice.
We just had to make sure that the store sliced the pizzas correctly or we would loose money.

We found hot dogs too messy with all the condiments.

I'm not advocating the hot dogs, but I wanted to share what I saw last night. We were at an away game for basketball. One of the student groups did a concession stand.

I always think of a concession stand as a lot of work, lot of [B]stuff[/B]. This one was very bare bones, but it seemed to work well for them.

They had two large classroom tables that were practically barren sitting in the hallway outside the gymn. There were a couple copies of a handwritten sign with prices and then:

1) cooler on wheels with the drinks (on the floor)
2) big crock pot with hot dog wieners
3) stack of napkins, bag of buns, bottle of ketchup, bottle of mustard
4) large cardboard box with selection of chips and crunchy snacks
5) medium cardboard box with moderate selection of candies

It wasn't the most attractive display but imagine the ease of setup/cleanup. Load up two-already-packed boxes, a roller cooler, and a small assortment of hot dog supplies. DONE!

Except for dealing with the hot dog wieners and ice, you could pretty much wipe off the table, stick your supplies in a closet until next week, and be done in 2 minutes.

As far as concession stands go, it was one of the most streamlined I'd ever seen at a school event.

Thanks for the ideas. I too wish we could do the GLO-STICKS - it would be a GREAT SELLER - but I appreciate the reasoning behind not dimming the lights too.

Keep the ideas comng and Happy Holidays!

How about school spirit or apparel items?

My Treasurer and Asst. Treasurer both moved on to the middle school this year and brought with them the ideas that were implemented by my group last year. For example, one of the things that we were very interested in pursuing when we realized that we had a new Principal coming in was a new school mascot. We explained how this was suggested a couple of years prior by the then PTO President and that unfortunetely the Principal decided that she did not like any of the suggestions so made the decision herself that the school would be the "stars". The PTO never liked this idea. The new Principal loved the idea of a brand new mascot and ran with the idea. He had the students submit ideas that were voted on by the individula classes, and then the entire school voted on one of the five choices that were decided upon by the staff and PTOers. In the end we became the Huskies. So, once we had a new mascot we needed new apparel. At this point we have T-Shirts, hooded sweatshirts, ballcaps, car magnets, water bottles and are working on adding even more.

The point is that the apparel makes a decent profit, so can be thought of as a fundraiser. I sell it all online, but we always do very well at each of our events. Friday is spirit day at the school, so the kids are always wanting to have the apparel.

So, not sure if someone is already doing this or not, but this is a good way to make funds. As I mentioned, the two members that moved on to the middle school implemented this exact idea and now their Cougar apparel is doing great.

Good luck,
PresidentJim

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 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.