No More Fundraisers

Diva came home yesterday with something very special to help the school. Diva is in kindergarten. Because the kindergarteners do not have lunch, the school could not discuss this wonderful fundraiser with them at that time, so they got a special presentation. And on top of the great help they will give their school, there are wonderful prizes to be won. The top prize is a ride in a limo for lunch! Wow! Diva has never ridden in a limo before. She was so excited and thought I would love to have a ride in the limo as well. She only has to sell 20 cards! How hard is that?

Let’s see, I have three children. My sister has three children. My other sister has two children. My brother has one child. My other brother has none. My brother-in-law has three children. My sister-in-law has two step-children and one on the way. That’s a total of 14 ½ grandchildren vying for their grandparents’ money. My parents are retired and although not desolate, they have raised me and I expect them to spend every penny of my “inheritance” on themselves. Not to mention, my parents and in-laws have all put their own children through school and dealt with their fair share of fundraisers. I am NOT going to ask them to buy a discount card. Oh yeah, did I tell you the cards are for local businesses and although all my family live in the metropolitan area, none of them live by me where they could take advantage of these fabulous cards.

Next we have employers. I am not about to ask my clients (parents of the children I watch) to support this fundraiser. That is simply bad business practice. I don’t even ask them to donate to our annual Buddy Walk; a much more worthy cause. My husband will not sell these at work. If his co-workers buy from him, then he feels obligated to purchase his co-worker’s children’s fundraiser items. It’s a vicious circle. Not to mention he’s in management and doesn’t want his staff to feel obligated.

Guess that leaves the neighbors. Oh yeah, they all have kids of their own, many of them going to the same school/district. Hmm, guess they aren’t going to buy from my kid.

That brings it down to me. Yes, I’ll buy one. That puts Diva in Prize Level A (1-2 cards sold). She gets a free kid’s meal from Culvers.

So for twice the cost of a kid’s meal that I could have simply purchased, I had to break my little girl’s heart. I had to explain to her that we will not be selling these cards and she will not be getting the limo ride. I had to look into a very excited little face and watch it turn to tears and hold her while she cried.

I am not opposed to giving funds to our school. The PTA asks for $40 from each family in lieu of doing an annual fundraiser. I happily write the check knowing I will not need to bother family, friends and co-workers or squash my little girls’ dreams. I participate in the annual fun festival and donate to the class baskets and silent auction. I don’t complain about paying taxes and support any bonds for school education. I will continue to do this even after my children are grown and moved out because I believe that, like early intervention for a child with disabilities, if we educate our children they will grow up to support themselves and contribute to society. It will cost us much less in a few school taxes than it will cost us in welfare if they can’t get a job as an adult.

I believe we have a very good school district and am thankful for my children’s education and teachers. I believe teachers are horribly underpaid. However, I have seen waste. The school uses Styrofoam plates and plastic ware in little plastic bags for lunch every day. This not only offends my economic sense, but how earth friendly is that? I’d much rather pay a little more for lunches and have someone wash a few plates and flatware. I have helped cut out laminated items for teachers and seen how sometimes they seem to go crazy. Do we really need to laminate a poster?

I don’t mean to be ungrateful, but I do not like how fundraisers use innocent children and encourage them with prizes to make these sales. You can reason with older children about the logistics of a fundraiser, but Diva couldn’t grasp it. For my daughter I’ll buy this stupid card that I will most likely never use. Even after we discussed it and I thought I had smoothed things over, she still brought it up several times through the day and night and cried every time. Even though she desperately wanted the limo ride, she also kept saying she just wanted to help her school. She is sad for no good reason but because a bunch of adults thought it would a great idea to offer her a prize so she could sell some dumb cards instead of trying to find a way to work within the budget they are given.