Fundraising: Mystery Knees Fundraiser

Terry Moss, Consulting Editor

Your school has a hidden (most of the time) resource that you can use to generate vaults-full of money for your athletic programs. What is this natural resource? Kneecaps…teacher's kneecaps.

With a bit of staff cooperation, you can organize a contest that will expose your staff's patella regions and keep the dollars rolling in for a solid month.

Setup
Take a photograph of the knees of 10 teachers. Post the photos on a bulletin board and assign a number to each photo. Set up a table at the bulletin board and assign a student to work the table during prime student-traffic times: before class, during lunch hour and after class.

Running the Contest
Students attempt to guess the owner of each pair of knees. For a dollar, they fill out the ballot form (see next page for an example) and make their 10 guesses. Your volunteer takes the money and places the ballot in a box.

After several weeks, go through all the ballots and determine whether anyone has been able to guess every knee correctly.

Prizes
The contest prize can be a percentage of the money donated. Or, if your school has a policy against a cash-prize contests, use donated merchandise prizes, rock concert tickets (get a local radio station involved), gift certificates at local stores, or other prizes that appeal to students.

If there is a tie, split the prizes among those who have guessed correctly, or have a further draw for a single grand prize.

Contributor: Terry Moss (Consulting Editor).
Terry Moss is a former head of Physical Education at Sudbury Secondary School in Sudbury, Ontario. She is now an elementary school principal with Sudbury's Rainbow District School Board.

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