Last Fundaiser done...for now

*inhales deeeeeeply and breathes a sigh of relief*

After seven long months and dozens of different activities, the fundraising is finally finished. The boys are in a few different activities; some sports, Scouts and Band. It just seems to be the nature of the beast that with these activities come the parental duty of selling this, delivering that and working the other to offset the activity costs.

I get that without the fundraising, many programs can't run. I also get that if people had to pay full (without fundraising supplements) price, many would not be able to afford to put their children in the activities, which is a shame.

We had many different items we had to sell. We can canteens we had to work. We had bingos we had to work. Each on it's own isn't too bad but when it all snowballs together, you get fatigue. You get parents who don't show up to do their share and leave the rest scrambling.

It reaches a point where if you are not careful, people will start to avoid you for fear the only reason you are approaching them, is to buy something :P

In the same way we have to be careful at school what kinds of activities we do, how we fundraise and how much we ask of families. The amount of 'please join our fundraiser' mail our school gets in a year is phenomenal. All of them are great causes but one simply cannot do everything.

 We meet at the beginning of each year to try to decide what we'd like to support in the coming year. Try to spread the love out a bit. Does one particular charity have special meaning to any of our school families? Does it support local, national or international? Is it something our students can DO rather than something they can buy/eat/consume. Our student leaders get choice too as we think that's an important part of being a part of the community and making choices.