Has Student Fund-Raising Gone Too Far?

[Dazed]

i am doing a paper on school find rasing.
i plan to debate both sides of the story.
like how most clubs are selling candy and other junk food.
or how it seems every week another club is selling something.

i just wanted to know what your thoughts are

[sdc91]

What are both sides? If you don't want it, don't buy it. Clubs need money somehow.

[Dazed]

one side being that yes school need some way to pay for clubs that arent covered in the state budget.

another side being that we are kids that are 7 years old kids selling door to door ,even if the schools say not to, just to win something stupid like a pizza party.

im not saying fund raisers are bad. car washes and the such would be fine.
but with a nation thats already over weight shouldnt they at least try to sell something besides junk food.

and what do we learn from fund raising? that if we dont sell the most were not the best.

i say if clubs cant afford to be there on the normal school budget maybe we shouldnt have them.

[beckyg]

I don't have a problem with it as long as the kids are safe and as long as the parents aren't taking the crap with them to work and selling it for the kids. That's a bit irritating. I think the kids should be doing it. I think we are forced to buy too much junk too. I would much rather give $25.00 cash to somebody and get the tax deduction than get some useless junk that I will never use.

[Dazed]

Originally Posted by beckyg

I don't have a problem with it as long as the kids are safe and as long as the parents aren't taking the crap with them to work and selling it for the kids. That's a bit irritating. I think the kids should be doing it. I think we are forced to buy too much junk too. I would much rather give $25.00 cash to somebody and get the tax deduction than get some useless junk that I will never use.

the most pointless thing i ahve had to sell was cookie dough.
like were people in cookie dough shortage and need a high school kid to sell tem some wait 5 weeks and then get it haha.

[thebikelady]

Every club in high school wound up selling king sized candy bars. I put on 50 pounds in high school. The band sold fruit and french bread pizza.
In the lower grades we sold wrapping paper and crap like that.

[Wander]

My school goes crazy with fundraisers, but we need it. The regulars are selling things like t-shirts and calendars during lunch or having members of the club carry them around with them, but we also have some big stuff. One thing we do every year is the "Date Auction": about a dozen male volunteers get up on stage and just stand there while hundreds of screaming girls make cash offers to go on a date with one of the men. The dates are in-school supervised with shitty food brought in from a restaurant across town, so no lewd conduct going on, but it's a great idea. For one, the girls do actually have to pay whatever money they offer. Two, they're crazy obsessed and will offer anything for the right guy. And three, my school is the rich-but-still-public school. Everyone's loaded. The auction brings in a few thousand dollars every year.

Which is necessary, because my school blew its budget putting five or six flatscreen TVs down the hallways of all three floors of the building.

[Tim]

I don't agree with sports teams fundraising, as it's normally just for trips or such, but music programs, etc that fundraise I DO agree with, because schools tend to cut the budget starting with them. In 8th grade, we had to fundraise all year long just to keep the orchestra. The band fundraised too, but they got ALL of the schools music funds -.- (the school doesnt support orchestra, its all about non string instruments to them).

In 7th grade, Band took ALL the money orchestra raised, which was BS. The next year, we got a new teacher, and made sure we got all the fundraising money, even from the band, as they took ours from 7th grade :P

Obviously, it depends on the school. Some schools I agree w/ fundraising, others I don't. No it hasn't gone too far. States are limiting the budgets for the schools :P

[Hoppip]

So let me just tell you that I'm pretty much the God of fundraising. Putting together fundraising days and events and things and earning money and creating knowledge and spreading support and putting up advertisements and igniting word of mouth and using the money for something awesome is MY FAVORITE THING EVER.

Right now my Diversity Club is doing a "Spirit Chain" thing to raise money to help pay for a 17 month year old disabled child's therapy. For a quarter, students buy a strip of paper colored for their class, they sign it, and we use it to create a huge chain link of paper. During the pep assembly, we're gonna roll them all out and award the winning class a stuffed tiger for the display case!

I freaking love fundraising, it's the spice of life and it helps jet kids into community service. Not only does volunteer work bolster somebody's self-confidence and happiness, it generates awareness for different viewpoints and catalyzes voice and action. Fundraising is awesome. It's capitalism, really--a mini little taste of business and economics for the student to experience.

[Wander]

Originally Posted by seanathon

a 17 month year old disabled child

wat

[Hoppip]

Originally Posted by Wander

wat

FUCK. I did it again. I keep doing that. I keep. freaking. doing that.

I actually tried to not say year this time, and I did.

>_<

*17 MONTH old.

^ even then, I had to erase year. Heh.

[Gumtree]

Odd, the only thing I have ever seen fundraisers for at my schools (I have been to quite a few) are major excursions (overseas or 10+days) and benefits (like recently, we have done some major fundraising for the Victorian bushfires).

I do disagree with some levels of fund raising, most schools in Aus banned selling chocolates and lollies at schools (that includes the canteen) and I supported that wholeheartedly, the effects of king size chocolate bars being sold for $1 was becoming visible, literally!

Now days, when a faculty wants money for an excursion, they host a school dance/social. A social can often bring in over $10,000!

At my college its a little different. They don't really fund raise for themselves but the Leisure and Tourism department seem to collect for some charity every single week. They don't even warn us about it so they stand at the doors with buckets and we're expected to give money. I have no problem with charity but I think its a little extreme to do it every week.

Another aspect that annoys me is that the department gets those big cheques and hangs them around their department to get praise for the efforts. I'm sorry but isn't that going against the whole point of what charity is?