PTO Today

Hi! I have been reading a lot of the previous posts but I have a couple of questions of my own. When trying to get donations from local businesses, do you include a self-addressed stamped envelope with the letter you send out? Or are businesses usually good about sending a donation using their own postage?

Also, for our fun frolic (we are a pre-k thru 12th grade school), there are members of our PTO who think that we shouldn't charge for admission or games and only charge money for concessions that night. Apparently in the past there was no charge; however it has been defunct for the past few years and the games look to be sub-par and had no thought put into them (grow-to-pro basketball, tic-tac-toe, etc.). This year we want to totally revamp it and bring it up to an awesome standard, including Halloween themed games/prizes, decorations, etc.

About 1/2 of us feel that we should charge (at the very least) an admission price like $3.00 per family or charge by the ticket (like 25 cents per game); the other 1/2 think it should be free. However, we feel like if we don't charge, we won't be able to fund other activities that can be free throughout the rest of the year (Dr. Seuss, TV turnoff, etc.). What does your school do and why? Thank you!

I think if you're putting together an "awesome" event there is NO PROBLEM charging a fee. I would stay away from tickets though, they are painful. Consider perhaps a flat fee or bracelet for folks that want to play the games. You could do 3 dollars a bracelet with a cap of 15 dollars per family or something along those lines. I've found most folks don't mind putting forth some support if the event is a good one, especially if it will fund future family oriented events. Heck you can't take a family of 6 to McDonalds for under 25 dollars now, so 15 bucks for a couple hours of fun acitivities is nothing.
Our school has a mix of fundraisers and free events so if there is a family that has a tight budget they are not shut out. We also have a sponsorship program that allows the principal to come to us to sponsor a family to an event. We never know who the family is and there is never a problem with allowing them reduced or free participation. You just keep that to yourself and drive on.

d

On donations, no I wouldn't include a STAMPED letter, that's a waste of your funds and I just can't imagine a company is going to donate/not donate over the price of a stamp. Perhaps an addressed envelope would be nice. I'm not sure we even did that.

Note - the vast majority of our donations are always local and so not too many are mailed. Most are dropped off with a letter by a volunteer and then picked up later on a follow-up visit.

We NEVER put a stamped envelope in donation requests. If people are on the fence about donating, I don't think the stamped envelope will be the thing to convince them. FWIW

As far as charging, we had a similiar situation. In prior years, it was run as a give-back and everything was free of charge. However, that being said, the games were not that great, prizes not that great and attendance was not that great. So, when new members came along we totally revamped everything. Games, prizes, food etc. And we really hyped it up. We made sure people understood that it was no longer free. (this was the tricky part) There were some people upset about the new structure and boycotted the event and even talked bad about us being money-hungry etc. The first year was slow. We covered expenses and made a couple hundred dollars.

But after that first year, it has taken off. People now know what to expect and look forward to it. They really don't mind spending money if they get a really fun night out. But, my advice is prepare to be slightly disappointed the first year you change the format. Sometimes it takes time to change peoples minds. But if you build it, they will come!!!

We don't put a self-addressed either-- most companies that donate will either call for a pick-up-- or send something themselves... no need to waste stamps in case they can't donate--
And if you are trying to update the games-- I see nothing wrong with charging for admission this year-- let the parents know why you are going to charge at your pto meeting-- so they know the charge at the door is for a purpose.

Thanks for all of your responses. I have one more question...do I need to include the school's special number (is it the tax id number?) on the thank you notes so that their donation is tax deductible? Or is it enough for it to be written on school letterhead and the number doesn't need to be included? Thanks!

If you had it in the original donation letter, I wouldn't think you would need it in the thank you... Also I wouldn't add it unless requested by the company with the donation.

We charge a minimal fee for most of our events of this nature, including our annual "Harvest Hoopla" (Halloween Party).

We do many things for our event, most are themed to the event.

We call it Harvest Hoopla so as to not offend anyone.

We do allow the children and parents to come dressed in costume, but we do not require it, do not provide awards for it, and do not allow anything gory or inappropriate.

We have a DJ and DJ games, such as "Pass the Pumpkin (using small stuffed pumpkins as the "hot potato") and the "Mummy Wrap", which teams up a child and an adult, with the child wrapping the adult in toilet paper.

We have a party games area with things such as bean bag toss (at a pumpkin board), Ring Toss (on to pumpkin stems), etc.

We have a pumpkin carving contest, with the kids and parents carving prior to the evening. The entries are displayed and prizes awarded for certain categories, such as Most School Spirit, Most Original, etc. Also, no candles. To light them up a flahlight or glowstick must be used.

We have a spook house/area. In years past we have has a witche's den, a mad scientist, gypsies and even a wizard. I can provide details if you would like for each, let me know which one.

This year we are actually looking to have a mini Hanuted House, age appropriate of course.

Hope this helps,
PresidentJim

Hello, We are changing our fall event a bit this year and one thing we have discussed has been the spook house. I love your ideas, could tell me how you formed them.
Thank you so much!!!

Sure, I would love to. Am actually very proud of this event and specifically the "spook house" areas...

For our first year we wanted an area like this, but were nervous about an actual haunted house. So instead I came up with the idea of having a mad scientist's lab and a witches' den. We purchased one of those inflatible halloween hanuted trees, the ones that have sound effects and is big enough to walk through. Each year we use this as our entrance...

We get some of that "Do not enter" ribbon to use as the entrance blocker.

For our first year we had a room that we called the pumpkin patch. Simply some hay bales lines a path. There were donated pumpkins, a scarecrow, corn stalks, gourds, etc. We also had sound effects playing and some fake ravens, owls and bats hanging or on the scarecrow or pumpkins.

This brough you to the Mad Scientists lab. We had one of our members dressed up as the Mad Scientist. He was wearing a lab coat, had glasses on and had his hair wild using glow in the dark neon gel. This room was very neon and we used some black lighting. There was a static ball and a bunch of lab equipment. There was also a lab skeleton for efeect. On the lab table we had a microscope that had things like spider legs and insect wings that could be looked at.

The last room was the witches' Den where we had two of our members dressed up as old crones. There was a cauldron with some dry ice. We also had a bunch of contaners labels with things like "Bats Wings", "Zombie Hair", "Spider Legs", etc.

The crones were "mixing a brew" and needed the help of the kids. They would call one of the kids up and have them dig into one of the lebeled bowls to add the component to the brew. Some items in the bowls were dried corn for "teeth", mellon balls for "eyes", things like that. The faces the kids made were priceless.

We did have a foot activated air controlled that the crones would step on each time a component was added to the brew. This would make the fog from the dry ice blast a bit for effect.

Once the brew was done we had the crones pull out their pet spider, which was a fake spider connected to a small hose that ran up the sleeve of one of the crones. She would pretend to feed the brew to the spider. Then she would have the kids come over to pet it. This thing can be purchased in most halloween stores. It has one of those rubber sqeeze balls on the other end and if you squeeze it it makes the spider jump. So when the kids came over they would make the spider jump startling the kids.

PresidentJim