We hold a fundraiser almost every month:
Sept-t-shirt sales
Oct-book bingo
Nov-book fair
Dec-santa shop
Jan-nothing
Feb-dance/raffle this year it will be dinner/raffle
March-book fair
April-carnival

This year we started a "Parents & Child Book Club". This is completely free to the parents. We are buying all student participants t-shirts free of charge. Just something we started to get parents and students reading together and spending quality time together. The meetings will be once a month for one hour. The first one is the end of Oct., hopefully this will go over well.

We buy a lot of equipment, AR books/tests for the school. We also try to bring in atleast three assemblies of some kind to the school. We already had the Minn. Science Musuem at the school (recommend it). We are getting a free electricity assembly in Jan. there is a Power Co. doing it, they sent out flyers (might want to look up something like that in your neck of the woods).

We do not have our students sell anything! All of our fundraisers are done in-school.

Marty

Another vote for starting slowly and working toward more later on.

I would choose one event that would have the maximum impact in terms of kids/families served and I'd be sure to do it well. (It's better to do something simple very well than try something complex and have it miss the mark.)

Given that this is almost October and we'll soon be heading into the busy holiday season, I'd be tempted to plan a solid family fun night for late January.

Next I'd add a "welcome back" picnic for the start of next school year.

During all of this, I'd be keeping my eyes and ears open for ideas for an event that could be unique to our school -- taking my time and pulling together some people who shared my vision, with the idea that it could be started in the 07-08 school year or even the year after that.

We too are very active and have done 7 things in the month of Sep alone...eeeggaaaddssss

Sept...provide child care for 4 separate open houses
Luncheon for the teachers
Ice Cream Social
Cici's Night (pizza spirit night)
Skate Night
and we did an assembly for the children
Oct....Cici's Night
Trunk Treat and Monster Mash
Bus Driver Appreciation Brunch
Cafeteria Appreciation Brunch

Nove...Red White and Blue Basket Bingo
Cici'c Night
Dinner and a Movie
Dec...Jingle Bell Jog
Cici's Night
Craft Night
Santa Shoppe

Well you get the idea....but it really is about starting slowly and working up. Our hospitality committee is so deft at this type of thing that they are ready to go from the minute the school doors open...that all helps a lot...

d

Hi!
We have (almost) monthly family nights. This will be our third year of doing this. Here is our schedule for this year:
Sept.- Pajama Night (Here is the link to what our district wrote about the event: www.mv.k12.wa.us )
Oct.- Fall Festival
Nov.- Craft Night + Art Show
Dec.- Bingo Night
Jan.- Science Night
Feb.- Under the Sea Carnival
Mar.- Chuck E. Cheese Night ( I know many schools focus on this as a fundraiser... but, for us, it is really a great, SIMPLE family night! Madison families pack the place... parents wander from table to table mingling, while the kids have a wonderful time... and there's no cleaning up afterwards!!!)
Apr.- Nothing... this is our month off.
May- Mexican Fiesta
June- Possible Movie Night

(Please feel free to look at our website-- www.mountvernonschools.org/madison -- in the Parent Group pages, you can find explanations of all of our events.)

Now, I'm a big fan off just jumpin' in and doing it! Three years ago, we had an essentially non-existent PTO... we could hardly find enough volunteers for 1 simple Bingo Night! The next year, we started with our monthly family nights... they caught on and now we have lots of great, involved volunteers at many levels. I think lots of parents are just waiting for the opportunity to get involved with these type of events... it's definitely worth the try!

GOOD LUCK!!!
Kelley
Madison PTO President
Mount Vernon, WA

[ 09-29-2006, 02:09 PM: Message edited by: kelleyraek ]

I don't think I would jump into something every month being you said you don't have a strong volunteer list yet--if you try to do something every month without the help--the people who do help you will tire out quickly. Maybe for the first year just add a couple events (movie nights, games nights--stuff relatively easy) then add more as your help goes up. We do something every couple months-
Book fairs in October
Breakfast with santa and santa shops in December
Box tops movie reward in December
February is our big fundraising sale
April will be box top movie reward
We are also selling t-shirts this year (waiting on the company to get us the prices so we can start that) and we will be holding 2 family movie nights(also waiting for the student council to decide what evenings they are doing their family nights for the middle school so we don't schedule the same night or week even)
So start slow would be my advice!

We do not do nay donations of money or supplies to the school so all of our money goes into programs and events for the kids and families. We host a family fun night every month all free of charge to everyone.It can be alot but it seems to be the way it works for us. It did take us three or four years to work up to a full schedule, I would recommend adding maybe two easy ones this year, and then maybe another two next...see how it works for your group and school.