Fund me! September 18, 2007
Posted by spacemom in : Current Affairs, Parenting 101 , trackbackI have a vision of Seymour from "Little Shop of Horrors", but instead of yelling "FEED ME", it’s yelling "FUND ME"
Soleil came home with a rather large packet in her backpack Friday. It had the catalogue for our PTA fund raiser. I tossed it right in the recycling. To be honest, I have never quite understood what to do in these cases, and now I am here. My child is coming home with fund raising materials.
I have 3 main objections to fund raising:
- It makes the kids work for something that they do not have a direct say in. A form of child labor, if you will. "oh please buy this so little Johnny can have the school supplies he needs. Look at Little Johnny’s big brown eyes, can you say No to this child?"
- There’s too much junk in this world anyway. Why do we need to produce the paperwork (which might not get recycled), the packaging, the products, the shipping (more pollution) for the PTA?
- I would rather just write a check. Ask for a damn donation. I’ll provide! Really.
Maybe I am too cynical. I did notice that the newsletter sent home with the fund raising package said "we will always take direct donations" which is exactly what I am going to do.
It’s not that I find that PTA/PTO don’t need money. I think I just take a very big objection to pushing kids to be sellers. I hated raising funds in school and I don’t want my kids to feel they need to. I also hate that we just don’t have the funding within the town to support the schools via taxes. The PTA/PTO has to have some operating expenses, and yes we, as parents, should help fund it, but I wish we could use some of our tax dollars towards this.
How do others deal with fund raising? I am curious, especially for those who have been there, done that with older kids…
BTW- Soleil will probably join the Girl Scouts. I will let her sell cookies. But I wish I could just write a check for that too.
Comments»
I *despise* all of those fundraisers. Ugh. Hate them with a passion. It’s going to be a serious quandry for me when the girls are old enough to be “sellers.”
OMG! I now have two schools to “sell for” why can’t we just write a check? is that against the rules? how much wrapping paper could I possible need? (I refuse to sell the friends and family)
We too dread the day of door-to-door, which, gah….unless she really, really wants to, I’d do the same as you.
I am so there with you…
when I was a kid, I remember my parents taking the stance that if we (the kid) wanted to go door to door, we could, but they (as parents) would not do any of the selling for us. I was so jealous of the kids whose parents would take those things to their offices and sell a gazillion chocolate bars or whatever. I knew I’d never win a damn prize having to do it myself.
But now as the parent, I dread it. I have already been hit up by several of the neighbors kids, and feel so awkward turning it down. I feel obligated to buy for my nephews and close friends, but as Lisa said above, how many rolls of wrapping paper do I possibly need? not to mention overpriced blech candy or other tchotckes
Agree with you whole-heartedly. Three kids in 2 schools, each with fundraisers (giftwrap, magazines). One girl has additional fundraising (plant sales-what a pain! Poinsettias and spring flowers. So not only are they contacting people, then you have to pick up the stuff, ultimately the counts are wrong, requiring multiple trips, or the flowers aren’t fresh by the time you get them, etc. etc. One time the flower count was wrong, the flowers looked crummy, and I just went to a garden center and bought nice plants for the missing ones to take to the buyer. That was the last time we did the flower sale!).
It’s so hard with little kids, because at the assembly they’re inundating kids with all the cool prizes that they can win, and they want to win them! Even tho it’s all just junky chochkees (sp).
Now we do not participate if too much trouble. I will buy fundraiser stuff myself if I need it. For example, I will make one large gift wrap purchase each year for the fundraiser and call it a day. And I look forward to doing this. Otherwise we don’t just don’t do fundraisers.
Girl Scout cookies — this is a bit different, as people seem to enjoy buying them. And the proceeds can be used by the troop for things that they want. For your daughter, you could just have her set a goal (not the troop’s goal necessarily, but your goal), then sell up to the goal. 10 boxes? That wouldn’t be too bad…
Regardless-I myself harbor no guilt for just not participating…