The boys brought home another fundraiser for their school the other day. I'm pretty sure that makes the 4th fundraiser for school year and we are only in November! This time, the PTO wants them to try to sell coupon books. I know the money raised goes to support school activites that maybe aren't budgeted for, but really, how many times can you make the kids and their parents peddle these wares before the families and community members are tired of purchasing items? My day was Monday. I told the boys that we are not selling anything else for the school and I would rather take them to see a movie or some other treat than to have to try to sell these books. Cale was more disappointed than Marcus. Cale likes to be a part of everything and I don't think he liked the thought of not being included in the cheap little prizes the PTO is giving away as incentives. I do feel a little bad for that. But, it makes me angry, too. These fundraisers "reward" participation with cheap trinkets and a little party at the end of the campaign. What if your family and friends can't afford to support the fundraiser? Children get excluded based on their friends and family's financial needs. Ridiculous! That makes me even more angry! I hate the thought of kids getting excluded from something fun because they can't afford it. So, I did what any fed up parent would do... I gave myself a day to calm down, and then I sent an email to the PTO person in charge of this campaign. I tried to not sound angry through the email. I just said that I was disappointed that there was another fundraiser and we cannot keep supporting these activities. I also questioned the exclusionary reward system they use and the money spent on the rewards. I got a civil reply back, inviting my to the PTO meetings (which I have a feeling they don't expect me to attend) along with information saying that for this fundraiser, the company is supplying the rewards. Which to me, does not make sense anyway. That's just extra money that the fundraiser will take off the top to pay for the rewards before the school sees anything. But, whatever, maybe I will go to a PTO meeting to see what goes on. We'll see.
I'm stepping down off my soapbox now.
1 comment:
I agree 100% with you on this. We also got very tired of the fundraisers. We did not try to sell to neighbors because every other child was selling in our neighborhood. We felt bad asking the grandparents every few weeks for yet more money for more cheap trinkets. And we decided that Paul would never take fundraisers to work - except for girl scout cookies and Kayla had to go to the office, in uniform, and sell desk to desk.
I finally decided to donate a small amount to each fundraiser and take the kids to the dollar tree to pick out a little trinket in lieu of their "prize." It worked for us.
In high school it's just as bad. You have football boosters selling things at the same time as chorus - at the same time as one of the classes - at the same time as band. You get the idea. It's ridiculous. Stand firm.
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