Fundraising: Ping-Pong Panic Fundraiser

Frank Plue, Lawrence Plue & Mary Lou Facey

Ping-Pong Panic is a spectacular lottery-style fundraiser that's sure to catch the attention of your students. Here's how it works.

Organization
At Monsignor Doyle Secondary School, we organized this fundraiser as follows: With wide publicity, we began preparations for Ping Pong Panic approximately six weeks prior to the day of the event. We began selling ping pong ball numbers for $1 .00 each. Each ball's number was recorded, along with the purchaser's name. We sold over 2000 ball numbers, allowing supporters the opportunity to win a variety of prizes (a T.V., stereos, disc players ....).

Our prizes were purchased using “seed” money from our Students' Council, but obviously, donated prizes would yield a much greater profit!

The Big Event!
On the day of our event, students who had purchased one or more balls were released from their classes to attend the special assembly and sit in the bleachers.

All the numbered ping pong balls were suspended in mesh near the ceiling over the basketball court in our gym. Placed randomly on the gym floor, which was enclosed by players' benches placed on their sides, were 12” coloured circles of bristol board with a prize name printed on the bottom of each one.

Following a count-down, a string was pulled, and the numbered ping pony balls were dropped
(exploded!) to the floor below, but were contained within the main basketball court. When the balls came to a stop, the ball closest to the center of each target won the prize listed on the under-side of that target. Winners' names were announced (from the master list of names and ball numbers), and they came out of the bleachers to receive their prizes.

Then, a large tug-of-war rope was dragged along the floor to quickly “sweep” away the ping pong balls.

Special Secret Event
As part of our publicity, it was revealed that there would be a special secret event for anyone who had purchased five or more balls.

These people were given specially inscribed pieces of paper from the class-room teacher as they left their rooms to come to the assembly.

Each of these people was asked to build a paper airplane, and were called from the bleachers to the floor in a group, where they launched their airplanes from a 30' circle around the middle of the basketball court. The airplane landing closest to the center of the gym won a special secret prize (which, for this “edition” of our event, was a 4' submarine sandwich purchased at a special cost from a local sub shop).

Conclusion
Profits, of course, could be used for any project - ours were used to help defray the costs of our athletic banquet. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed this unique spirit-building, fundraising activity, and we plan to use it again.

Contributors: This fund-raiser was initially created by Frank Plue - a teacher at Bishop Smith Catholic High School, in Pembroke, Ontario. It was further refined and developed for use at Monsignor Doyle Catholic Secondary School in Cambridge, Ontario by teachers Mary Lou Facey and Lawrence Plue.

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