Showbag Drive Fundraiser
Showbag Drive Fundraiser
I attended a fete last weekend (one of the perks of my job) and overheard a lady complaining that there were no showbags on sale at the fete. She had been hoping to buy showbags so she didn’t have to take her kids to her the ‘Ekka’ (The Royal Show in Brisbane) in a couple of weeks time.
Apparently, the fete organisers had felt that the timing of the fete was too close to the Ekka and so decided, for the first time, to not have a showbags stand. Nobody wants to overload their poor parents!
If only they had asked me!!!
Schools and clubs, when they take exactly the opposite approach, can run a very clever fundraiser, and actually do their parents a favour at the same time!
Many families do not wish to invest the megabucks of taking the whole family to a show. The cost of taking a family can easily run into several hundreds of dollars, and while it is a fantastic experience, not everyone is going to be going. I personally take my family every second year.
Running a ‘mini-show’ showbag fundraiser (using order forms) is a great alternative for kids to get a bit of the ‘flavour’ of the show without actually going along. It’s a fantastic leveller, and the showbags in these showbag drives are generally the more basic variety (read: at the lower-end of the pricing scale).
This makes a showbag drive a great equalizer, rather than a burden on parents. Those taking their kids can opt to wait for the big day (and big $$) to get the megatronicbellsandwhistles showbags. The rest can have a little taste of the show.
This is a great one for kindergartens also – who wants to be dragging their 3 year olds to the show? Uggh!
Alternative idea
The other ‘Show Day’ themed fundraiser is a themed tuckshop day. Send home order forms before the day, and pack up a simple lunch (it doesn’t have to be full of garbage). Something like a ham sandwich, chopped up apple, popper, and (if you’re happy to go down the ‘treat’ path) a mini bag of fairy floss (buy snack bags and divide up larger pre-packaged bags – you don’t have to put much in there!).
The showbag can include an entry token into a sideshow game you have set up – get the school leaders to take charge of this one – perhaps a milk bottle knock-down game or a simple turn on a basketball hoop. You don’t even need prizes if you allow students to accumulate house-points or merit points! Otherwise, students can earn points for their class, and the winning class each get a mini showbag. So many possibilities!!!
Originally published 31 July, 2015
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