I really hate school fund raisers for kids.

[LtPage1]

I haven't bought them in a few years. I remember gorging on and entire box of thin mints once. It was awesome.

Once? I do that about two dozen times every spring.

OP, I couldn't agree more with you.

 

[ichy]

I saw another kid get paddled by the Vice Principle for that and I was about to as well before my parents stepped in again.

WTF, did you go to Catholic school?

 

[dainthomas]

Once? I do that about two dozen times every spring.

OP, I couldn't agree more with you.

Thin mints rock. They can charge $3 because people pay $3 because those cookies are freakin' awesome! If they sold those all year I'd weigh like 600 pounds. Those and the Samoas. Mmmmmm.

Our local football team was going around a couple weeks ago selling $20 "coach's cards". Discounts on all kinds of restaurants, coffee places, bowling, oil changes etc. The thing will easily pay for itself, and I know the vast majority of the money goes to the team.

 

[waggy]

Thin mints rock. They can charge $3 because people pay $3 because those cookies are freakin' awesome! If they sold those all year I'd weigh like 600 pounds. Those and the Samoas. Mmmmmm.

Our local football team was going around a couple weeks ago selling $20 "coach's cards". Discounts on all kinds of restaurants, coffee places, bowling, oil changes etc. The thing will easily pay for itself, and I know the vast majority of the money goes to the team.

we get the "coach card" type things. they cost $20 but hell i can save $100 easy.

they also have coupon books. i save at least $300. they have a few coupons for local golf courses and that alone does it.

 

[HumblePie]

WTF, did you go to Catholic school?

No, Texas public school system allows paddling as a form of disciplinary action.

 

[Anubis]

i was the top seller in both 5th and 6th grades when our school did the Magazine selling shit. i got lots of cool prizes/toys and real fucking cash for it

 

[KMFJD]

Only fundraisers we had where kept in the school, bake sale, raffles, selling chips/juice/milk

 

[DrPizza]

As an advisor at my school, I refused to have my students partake in any sales that removed money from the community. i.e. selling candy bars, that crappy wrapping paper, etc. Today was the first day back to school for me. My mailbox had at least ten brochures from companies on various fundraisers. I shit-canned them all. Car washes, pizza dinners (spaghetti dinners are boring), etc. :thumbsup: Selling a candy bar for $1.00, then 74 cents goes to some company? Whoa, sounds like we made $0.26 on each candybar. Wrong. Most school groups are *not* tax exempt & our school follows laws very carefully. There goes another 8 cents, making the proft only 18 cents. And, I know very well that with a small community & few people to sell to, at least half of the candy bars ultimately get eaten by the student and his/her family.

As far as kids coming to my door. (Just had one last week selling wrapping paper for an exhorbitant price & chocolate candy for what worked out to about $20 per pound.) Looked over his brochure, said tell you what, let me see your order sheet. Wrote my name down, and across where the boxes are checked for the order, I put "$5 donation." Felt good to realize that the money will go directly to the pee-wees or midgets football team instead of 80% of my money going to some company exploiting the children and group for their own bottom line. So, I think from now on, I'll just reach into my pocket, see how much cash I have on me, and donate anywhere from $5 to $20, depending on the group & kid.

 

[Sloper]

Not for the 95% of the population that doesn't grow up to be a degenerate salesperson.

(BTW- my wife is a salesperson)

You know those people that can persuade others into doing anything for them?

These guys are the life of the party, successfully negotiates business contracts, have girls fall for them, and even have their neighbors fix their computer network issues.

Becoming good at sales gives you some of the tools to do that. It's applicable to pretty much everyone.

 

[Chaotic42]

I hate it when coworkers bring their kids' candy sales box to work and walk around asking everyone every day. I live in a retirement community, so I don't have many kids coming around selling crap.

 

[lxskllr]

I hate it when coworkers bring their kids' candy sales box to work and walk around asking everyone every day. I live in a retirement community, so I don't have many kids coming around selling crap.

^^^This

It's extortion pure and simple. You're the asshole if you don't buy some of their crap. I don't anyway, but it's lame to put people on the spot like that. I don't sell shit for my kids, and I expect the same from other people.

 

[Chaotic42]

^^^This

It's extortion pure and simple. You're the asshole if you don't buy some of their crap. I don't anyway, but it's lame to put people on the spot like that. I don't sell shit for my kids, and I expect the same from other people.

Yup. We do have one guy who has a daughter who sells girl scout cookies, and he puts the little form up on the message board, which is cool. No pressure and he doesn't waste work time with it.

 

[HumblePie]

^^^This

It's extortion pure and simple. You're the asshole if you don't buy some of their crap. I don't anyway, but it's lame to put people on the spot like that. I don't sell shit for my kids, and I expect the same from other people.

Yep I hate this.

I also hate how much time is taken out of school for these fundraisers. It's not like a 10 minute deal. They spend HOURS teaching these kids. They have "rallies" in the auditoriums, or whatever is similar, and waste tons of time that could be spent teaching kids what they need to know.

These fund raisers provide no educational benefit, very little monetary benefit, waste the time of the kids, parents, teachers, and community.

Again, I don't mind a fund raiser where the kids are doing something like a bake sale where they bake the food themselves. Or something similar. All proceeds go to the kids. The kids learn something from making a product or performing a service. This is fine. The current corporate corruption just pisses me off.

 

[CPA]

I wholeheartedly agree with your OP. I forbid my kids from doing the fundraisers.

 

[marvdmartian]

Selling boy scout popcorn was the worst. That stuff is ridiculously expensive.

No more so than GS cookies, imho. yeah, they're good, but the boxes keep getting smaller, while the prices keep going up. Geez, I'd rather see the girls do a damn bake sale, and sell something they made themselves (terribly feminist of me, wasn't that??).

 

[RbSX]

The worst thing is that I remember was that for my school fair every spring, if you didn't sell your tickets, your account was charged and your parents had to pay for it.

 

[coloumb]

No Solicitation sign usually works for most of the kids [and door to door sales people]. If the doorbell rings, and it's not someone I recognize, I simply won't open the door. Even in the old days - the crap was still CRAP. Whenever I'd get the forms - I'd just say "nobody wanted to buy anything" and be done with it.

When/if I donate - it'll be something like a car wash, bake sale, etc - where the money is directly going to the kids and not some greedy corporation that takes in a majority of the profit for JUNK.

 

[KK]

My kids came home a couple days ago with some sort of fundraiser. I prefer just to give them cash. What the hell is up with selling wrapping paper?

Speaking of peddling at the office for a fundraiser, about a month or so ago, I noticed someone at work put up a flyer raffling off tickets to when a 32" lcd. Proceeds went to him to pay for his kid to go to private school.

 

[IronWing]

Crap I had to sell door to door as a kid: candy, fruitcake, pens, fire extinguishers (yes really), newspapers, mirrors, grapefruit, my body, oranges, chocolates, cookies, ornaments, magazines, a plethora of stupid little craft items, cheese boxes, frozen pizza, and calendars. There are probably more that I'm forgetting. Now that I'm standing on the other side of the door, I tell the kids to beat it.


Edit: Salad dressing, four varieties, each nastier than the others. Trying to sell that crap was tough. "Want to buy some salad dressing?"
"Is it good"
<contorted face>"Tastes like vomit in corn oil, er, it's delicious!"

 

[ViRGE]

Crap I had to sell door to door as a kid: candy, fruitcake, pens, fire extinguishers (yes really), newspapers, mirrors, grapefruit, my body, oranges, chocolates, cookies, ornaments, magazines, a plethora of stupid little craft items, cheese boxes, frozen pizza, and calendars. There are probably more that I'm forgetting. Now that I'm standing on the other side of the door, I tell the kids to beat it.

Do go on.

 

[Exterous]

I hate it when coworkers bring their kids' candy sales box to work and walk around asking everyone every day. I live in a retirement community, so I don't have many kids coming around selling crap.

I think it's even worse how they camp outside of stores I frequent. I kid you not - last weekend they were outside Kroger, Home Depot and Lowes. It seems like this is an increasing occurrence. Last year it was just the cube scouts outside Kroger for 3 weeks straight. This year this is the second stretch. It was the girl scouts in May outside the three stores for what seemed the whole freakin month. Now it's the cub scouts and I fear I have many weeks of this left to go. Maybe I am just crotchety but I do not want to be solicited when I go to a store (I also hate the sales reps in the home improvement stores). Makes me not want to go to those stores (Not that I have many other choices around here)

 

[purbeast0]

i remember selling Worlds Finest Chocolate stuff back in the day, was not bad at all taste wise but was $2 or $3 for each item, and this is when candy bars in stores were 50 cents.

then we had the readathon, where you go around before you read books and ask people to make a certain amount of donations based on the total # of books you read in like a month or something like that. most people who would donate did like 25 cents or a dime or something like that.

well i cheated like hell doing mine and came in first place in my school because i wanted the prize for #1, which was one of those slot car race track toys back in the day. i lied like shit about the books i read. i had probably like 50+ books on there, and didn't read one.

 

[ponyo]

The worst is Boosterthon Fun Run scam. They make kids get pledges for laps run and they do this during school day wasting classroom learning time. I want to punch the person who approved of this scam.

 

[BoomerD]

I hate kids.

They're not too bad if you cook em right...


Fortunately, when I was in school, we didn't have fund raisers...buy my kids were expected to do it.

The only time we actually expected our kids to participate was to pay for the "6th grade Outdoor Education camp" that all 6th graders here attend for a week. It's good for the kids...and it's GREAT for the parents to get rid of the kids for a few days...

Both kids sold enough of the $1.00 candy bars to pay for their own trips and helped a couple of friends pay for theirs as well. (of course, that meant I was expected to buy lots of candy...)

Kahleeforneeya has fallen to near the bottom in dollars spent per child in recent years...and that's a fucking shame.

 

[RPD]

Shit when I was in school we did "lap"athons. For every lap I run how much will you donate? 10 cents SWEET!!!