Larry Potter came home with school fundraiser materials.
And this was not your run-of-the-mill candle purchase or gift wrap catalog. No. This catalog had catalogs inside of it, along with flyers, order forms, change of address forms, social security card applications, and a job application.
There's also a few pages telling students what they can "win" when they sell X-amount of
The actual wording:
"Our School, Our Students, Our Parents and Teachers! [highlighting and underlines their emphasis, not mine.]
Get involved! PARTICIPATE!
Be a "part of the positive"!
Can we get 100% participation?
Only if YOU decide to help!
YOUR DECISION MATTERS!
[All capitalization and grammar mistakes are theirs as well. Psychos.]
Hopefully you will visit the web site to check out
"The Green and Gold Experience"
Reward Party
Coming to our School!
wwww.greenandgoldexperience.com
See our color flyer enclosed for all the
special details...
DON'T MISS IT!
--
Ugh. And they spared no expense at Kinkos getting the full color sheet on this party.
Am I crazy? Now, this was distributed at our school, a public school, to at least the 3rd grade students (I bet Hoover comes home tomorrow with one) and at school, you are supposed to do what you are told. This sheet of paper is telling the kids not to miss the party. Which you can only go to if you sell 10 items or more. So their basically telling the kids to go out and sell 10 items. At least.
And let me tell you, LP is all jazzed about this. He even told me that he can be entered into a contest to win a trip to Disney World. This is the big time, Mom.
Here's the e-mail I sent to our loved ones. I hope they still love us after this:
Hello--
LP and Hoover's school is being a greedy little educational institution and even though they just built an addition, they apparently need $10 to buy chalk or playground balls or something. I have half a mind to call them asking why they insist on turning my sweet boys into used car salesmen so early in life, but I'm trying to not do that kind of stuff this year.
So, in the interest of being a plastic, non-opinionated PTA mom, please imagine me in my best fake voice..."Hi there! Could you please look through this catalog and see if there's anything you would like to order? It's for the boys' school, and we all know children are our future...let's teach them well and let them lead the way!"
Ugh. I tried to explain the concept of mark-up to Nate and how his school will probably make only 10% on each box of candy or roll of wrapping paper, but he just keeps telling me that if he sells enough, he gets to go to a PARTY.
The link is: http://www.cherrydale.com and please use code 76697 if you order...that's the student code to make sure my kids get credit.
If you'd like LP or Hoover to call you with a sales pitch, I can arrange that. Although, this weekend LP is working on his OWN endeavor...a lemonade stand during a town festival with lots of drive-by and walk-by traffic. Unfortunately, I can't send lemonade through the mail, but if I could, I bet LP would want to design his own website and have on-line ordering.
Thanks....and sorry.
--
Seriously, they just added on a huge addition to the school. I hate to sound like a Republican, but what's up with that? I have a big school fundraiser every January...it's called my property taxes.
When I asked LP what the school was raising funds for, he couldn't tell me. He just kept saying how Leroy Butler was going to be at their school and he could meet him if he
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| I will only love you if you're into high-pressure sales. |
I don't know if it's the whole fundraising idea that bothers me though...but rather the glitzy spare-no-expense prizes and printing they fill these kids' heads with and then home with a packet larger than the Offer to Purchase for my house. You know someone is making money on this. And the prizes? It's not a pizza dinner donated by the local pie shop....no, it's cash. How about you take that cash and give THAT to the school so I don't have to buy a 2' roll of wrapping paper for $6? Whatever happened to a bake sale?
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| That's $2.30 a bag. And no tissue. I can buy 4 bags for a buck at the Dollar Store. |
And did I mention you could order online? Make sure you type in LP's number 76697 so he gets credit. I know you'll get right on it.
What's next, mylocalelementary School? Sewing leather wallets for exporting? Teaching the kids how to use a screen printer?
My dad had the right idea. He wrote back to my email asking if he could just give the school a check and forgo all the
ugh! I remember being in my mid-20s, fondly reminiscing about Girl Scouts, and then realizing that GS brainwashed us into peddling a third-rate overpriced food-product masquerading as a "good cause", and that I'd been had in a big way. I remember my Jr. high catching on to this method of making a buck later on.
ReplyDeleteI think you should throw your kids' catalogs in the trash and tell them about how rampant consumerism is not the answer to America's problems. :)
Hmm. I'm torn. I get the whole I don't want my kid selling crap thing. (Because most school fundraisers sell crap). But I also understand the school's end of it too. My school has had 2 additions added on to it since it was built in 2004. We're currently at around 860 or so kids, but with the state's budget crisis, we are so underfunded right now. So the district's budget has been cut, which means the schools are actually hurting right now, so fundraising is one way they can actually get some of the money they could so desperately need right now . . .
ReplyDeleteSo I hear you. But I also see the other side. --Michele
I was hoping you'd comment, Michele. I'm trying desparately to see the other side of this. It's just that I suspect your school is hurting financially, and our school...well...is like Paris Hilton with a Visa. They didn't need an addition; they just wanted one. Which is the way they tend to operate. Neighboring towns got amounts like $218,000 from the goverment. Our school? $183. There's a reason for that.
ReplyDeleteOh, and I found out why we have the fundraiser...for new playground equipment. That was replaces 4 years ago. Yeah....priorities are good...
::Breathe, Jess...just breathe::
I hate fundraising too! I think it's because we do so many...the PTO, the music dept, the gym. I mean, gym? Really? WTF do they need a fundraiser for? Ugh. And then when you have multiple kids selling the same.damn.thing. It's tough to keep asking! This year my kids' school is doing a Fall Fest funfair. I guess last year they raised like 10k for school through it. That's something I can get behind because at least I get to take a cake home or a fish that will die in 3 days!
ReplyDeleteBut, we've never been promised a GB Packer. I think I'd sell 30 things in that case lol! Go Pack Go!
Schools do the injustice of not first selling the parents on a legitimate purpose for their fundraiser. They rely on the fundraising companies to simply sell it to the kids by luring them in with prizes and think that will be enough. It's obviously not! As a result it's the schools that are loosing the credibility because no one is asking where the money's going.
ReplyDelete