We just had our Carnival with our basket auction last month. We used room parents as well. We gave them a sample letter to send home.
We had pretty lousy participation as well. What I did is go to the classrooms that didn't really receive any thing and let the kids that did send something in pick something out of my "basket". I had little prizes that we had in our PTO office. Vampire teeth, superballs, foam planes, tattoos. Stuff like that. I told them that I would be back the week before the basket items were due and anyone else that turns something in will get to pick then. It seemed to work, we got another 5-6 items out of each classroom.
We, too, utilize our room parents for auction baskets. When we have our room parent breakfast in September, they choose their themes from a list of suggestions or provide their theme. They have "ownership" of the project from the beginning. Our auction is in the fall, but we would still do this even if in the spring. The more time parents have to make purchases, the better.
The room parents generate all letters and emails regarding the baskets. Of course we provide samples in the room parent folder along with a list of deadlines (so everyone is on the same page). The room parents also are responsible for making the list of contents and wrapping/preparing the baskets for presentation. There is a lot of variety and and the parents seem to enjoy this part of the job and it takes a lot of work off the auction committee. They email their content lists to an auction volunteer who puts the information into a brochure for the event.
MelissaW;141121 wrote: In the past we've done classroom baskets and it was a successful fundraiser. However, teachers complained b/c they felt it took up too much of their time...so we moved on to something else.
Does anyone have any ideas to lessen teacher involvement so we can start this up again?
Thanks,
Melissa
Do you have room parents? We have our room parents do the work for the classroom baskets. They get the idea from the teacher and students and then put it together themselves.
Our school usually does baskets. This is the first year that I am seriously involved in the decision making. What we usually do is collect a donation (usually $1-$5) from the parents, buy the stuff and make them ourselves. Do you ask parents to donate items for a specific theme basket? I trying to see which would be easier.
When our school has its basket collection going on we have utilized the room parents of each class to give a friendly call letting the parents know 1.what has been brought already in and 2. ask if they had an idea of what they wanted to bring, explaining this helps to reduce any duplicates, 3.and what day it needed to be brought in and 4. that they will not be getting any other calls asking them about this.
Parents have responded very favorably to the room parent calling because they know the parent and the child of the parent and are not threatened.
Some popular basket themes for us have been Car Wash, Campfire, Chocolate Lovers, Kid's Art, Baker's, and Spa. Attractive, appropriate, and large enough containers for the "basket" can be challenging.
An inspiring art object I saw at another school auction was done by a class and teacher. She took Vincent Van Gogh's Starry Night, made a grid, and each student recreated a square of the painting. It was pieced back together and framed.
