Comments on: Parents Balking At School Fundraising

Some Say It Takes Up Too Much Time And Prefer To Just Write A Check

[joey2700]

This is a tough topic. Schools need funding and who better to go after than the families who utilize the schools. However, it gets out of hand when we are purchasing gift wrap, candy, raffle tickets and Bingo nights on a regular basis.

My concern is not so much the hounding for money on a constant basis but I worry about the possible danger the kids may be put in. There are so many incentives (games, gift cards, etc) for kids to sell the most products, that I worry they may try and sell to just about anyone.

Our school just did a fundraiser with a company called CoolZips.

They handle everything. No door to door sales for the kids and no deliveries by the parents. This is something for your schools to consider. It is another fundraiser but boy did it eliminate the time and frustrations.

[realmom2]

No matter whose fault it is, our schools NEED fundraising to garner the extra cash not coming from sources we've had in the past. "Write a Check" is cool; however, one or two quality fundraisers a year (not 8--that's when parents get fed up and tired out) ain't so bad. Try food fundraisers (we all eat) and get away from the trinket and candy bar fundraisers that come a dime a dozen. Get the community involved and make it fun and profitable.

[ecuadoriana]

To paraphrase a bumper sticker I once saw:

When was the last time the armed forces had a bake sale to raise money for weapons?
_____________________

Why is it that schools, whose sole purpose, supposedly, is the education & enrichment of tomorrow's best & brightest, are strapped for cash, but BabyBush just requested that we fork over more money to "support the troops"?

With the education system the way it is today, why bother having schools at all? Just put the kids out to work until they're old enough to sign up. It just seems like our government's sole purpose is to kill off as many of tomorrow's best & brightest anyway for fear they'll live long enough to want to collect on their social security & medicare. If we didn't have schools to worry about funding then we'd have that much more money to kill more people!

[lenoirdenant]

25 years ago my husband told the school principal that our daughter would not be participating in any fund raisers that sold candy, spices, candles and other high priced low quality items. In fact she would not sell anything for the school. The principal was shocked to say the least.
The fund raising using our children and grandchildren has gotten out of hand. I do not know the solution, but it does have to stop.

[oleander8]

I emailed this story to my daughter and got this reply:

"Funny you should send this - Frankie just brought the spring fund raiser home. It was selling all kinds of junky candy and nuts, (think Brach's) for $6.00 per 7 oz. I threw it directly in the trash can"

[jburress]

I know the transportation director in our school district charges the student organizations (clubs not athletic teams) .99 a mile for transportation and gets .93 a mile back from the state government. The bill is automaticaly charged to our club account and paid by the school secretary before we have a chance to protest it. Teachers are paid .30 a mile when we transport students.

[truthword]

School districts, water districts, cities, counties, states, and the fed government are all running a major double bookkeeping scam called CAFR reporting. The budget they show you is just a shell game where they show you the bills and expenses and claim they're broke and need to raise taxes, meanwhile they're hiding billions and trillions of our tax dollars in their 2nd book the CAFR or Comprehensive Annual Financial Report. If things were ran honestly we'd all be getting dividend checks every year from each of these insitutions and living in a tax free society, that's how profitable our system is folks. This is no conspiracy theory, the numbers are right there in their official document the CAFR... over 85,000 CAFR's are filed every year in the USA... look into this folks, on the search engines, we're being robbed blind, our kids could have the best schools ever, even the homeless are owed tons of money. They're holding onto this money to use it as a control method, redistribute the surpluses now!

[cgesualdo]

I'll bet it hasn't occurred to most parents that they can do what the mother in the story did: call the principal and say "no more." I really have to wonder about all this fundraising. I was never asked to participate in a fund raiser until I was in high school band, and the money was used only for special trip expenses, never for every day education. And notice, I can spell and construct a proper sentence. I even went to college and earned some degrees. My education did NOT suffer for it.

[sydknott]

An important fact that was missed in the story is that typically schools only receive 50% from gift wrap, magazines, cookie sales, etc. I write a check, that way the school receives 100% of the donation and there is so much less work for everyone.

[dragonmouse-2009]

I absolutely HATE fund raisers where we have to sell garbage like over priced Sally Foster products, teeny tiny tins of candy etc. It's so embarrassing. I'd so much prefer to simply write a check. I'm not a rich woman but I always end up buying "something" just for my son to get "credit". It's nutz. Why can't he get credit for turning in a check? I realize some people can't afford a "pot to pee in" and will have a devil of a time coming up with the check and would prefer to "sell" but give us a CHOICE.

Now if they want to do a fund raiser such so the kids get out there and wash cars or something...then I don't see a problem with that. This selling fund raiser stuff needs to STOP.