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Pastimes : Where the GIT's are going -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Augustus Gloop who wrote (102189)	5/26/2005 1:22:22 PM
From: PatiBob	Respond to of 225578

That's for true.

To: Augustus Gloop who wrote (102189)	5/26/2005 4:25:51 PM
From: Naomi	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 225578

If you want to make some real money for your school, you might try this approach. Have an auction wherein you ask each family attending the school to donate an item, not anything like a white elepant item though, and have an evening of fun. Pick a nice place to hold this auction and have a dinner and sell tables for this event. I did this once and it turned out to be a wonderful evening and raised over $100,000.00 for the school my Son attended. I sent out a letter to each of the families stating this was a fundraiser and that if we could get some really nice items, such as, an old wedding gift stored in the attic that they had never used, jewelry that they no longer wore, not a keepsake, but something that would bring money that others might want to own and just anything thay felt valuable enough to share with others. The response I got back was amazing and we started our list of items to auction. We had a family that belonged to a Country Club and solicited their help for a place to have the auction. The families loved the idea of not having to go out into the community to beg and ask for items. We did solicit some people to help with donating the wine to be served at the dinner and that also helped with expenses. We then sent out invitations to the families and any of their family or friends they wanted to invite. We sold tables of ten and then had tables that could be filled with individual reservations for including those families whose incomes would limit them from buying a table. We also included the staff and teachers and gave them complimentary tickets if they donated any item of value to auction. This worked well and they were delighted to be included in this fundraiser and helped where needed. We had two celebrity auctineers who entertained and kept the crowd bidding on the items and they also donated their time. We had some talented Mothers that were available to do the table decorations and at the end of the auction those were sold to anyone that wanted one to take home for their own decor. We sold them for what it cost us to make them and sold them all. We also got the vases from a discout house with a very good price for each. They were three individual sizes of clear vases and we filled each one with a beautiful fresh cut flower. They could use them over and over again with their own ideas of what they wanted to put in them and was told by one couple it would remind them of the fun they had at the auction. We sold everything and I also thought about auctioning the two celebrities for a dinner for eight people, but the auction time we allowed quickly expired and we did not do that, but it could be done and would probably bring a good sum. This auction was done with little expense so the profit for the school was done within the school and that made some of us so proud to be a part of it. This was a very fun evening and raised more money than had ever been raised and almost all of it was without expense to the school and provided by caring, supportive parents who donated their time and talents as well. We had a great group of parents and gave us a chance to get know more of the parents and form friendsips that have lasted a long time. If this idea interests you, I would be happy to speak with you and give you some hints about doing it. We received some very valuable donations, such as an oriental rug, some beautiful jewelry, crystal and china items some of which were still in their original boxes and never used. We did receive some individual pieces of paintings and those were very lucrative for the auction. Also had some antique pieces of furniture that brought good prices. We asked for anything of value for them to donate and we had many surprises from the items they donated. When they delivered their items we would ask them the history of the item and we also solicited an appraisal person to give us the value we could expect for the item and decide what minimum to start the bidding that we should use. We were amazed at some of the appraisals and this excited us that this would be a good money raiser for the school. It was hard work at times but we all enjoyed the company of the group working. We even had a parent who owned a swimming pool construction company and donated the materials and time to build a backyard pool. That surprised us and it sold for a good amount and was accepted very well. I really enjoyed doing this and it gave me a way to be very supportive of our wonderful group of parents who were so enthusastic about the idea. We had meetings to discuss the menu and include those who were on special diets and it was a group decision. We had people say they came because the menu was somthing they could have and enjoy. We tried to be cognative of any of the problems that might come up that would prevent any from coming to the event. We also had a cash bar for any of those that wanted hard liquor and found out we made money off of that too. We contacted a few liquor companies asking for donations for our cash bar and that worked out also. All in all, we had very few expenses other than the invitations which we got donated and the cost of postage to send to the families. Our Mothers addressed the invitations and we all got together at my home to do that and get them mailed out on time. It was really a group of parents that wanted to donate their time and talent to help the children of this school. It is something I will never forget and I felt it enriched all of our lives at the same time.