Fundraising: Babysitting Fundraiser

Dick Moss, Editor, PE Update.com

Here's an excellent fundraiser that's particularly effective during the Christmas shopping rush. This is a time when parents want to go shopping but can't do it with children in tow.

Follow the lead of the Carl Nesbitt Public School in Sudbury Ontario, and organize a babysitting service on a prime shopping night.

How to Organize
Nesbitt advertises in advance by sending flyers home to parents. For $10 they tell parents that they will take their children off their hands for three hours one evening, allowing the parents to shop, run errands, or just spend those blissful hours minus young children. Be sure to advertise a minimum age, so the children are old enough to enjoy the activities you'll have planned.

Use staff, student teachers, parent volunteers, and even older students to supervise the children.

Block off a section of your school that includes a couple of classrooms and the gymnasium. Then organizes games in the gym, runs videos in one of the classrooms, and possibly arts and crafts in another room. Kids are free to move between rooms but supervisors make sure they do not leave the restricted area.

Food
The flyer that is sent out include an order form for pizza and a beverage. Parents who order in advance, will pay a little extra but their children will get pizza and a pop or juice for supper. That pizza is ordered in based on the pre-order numbers.

Carl Nesbitt makes a several hundred dollars per session, using this quick-and-easy fundraiser that is not difficult to organize or to run.

Dick Moss, Editor, PE Update, Fall 2011.

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