I cannot believe the school trips that are offered to high school students. There are band trips، chorus trips and trips for the drama club. It seems that there is some type of fund raiser going on all the time. Through the years my daughter has sold candy bars، magazine subscriptions، cookie dough، discount cards to local businesses، Christmas cards and a variety of other things. This year the band is putting on a carnival to raise money for a trip to Chicago. My daughter asked me to be involved with the committee.
At the first committee meeting there were several parents and band members that came to present support for the project. We discussed what date to have the event as well as the carnival games that we would use to raise money. We did not want to spend too much money on prizes for the carnival games because that would take away from the profits. Three of the older band members volunteered to go to several businesses in the area to see if they would donate items that could be used as prizes. One of the teachers that came to the meeting had a catalog of cheap novelty gifts that could be used for some of the carnival games geared towards young children. We agreed that we needed to have activities for all age groups including parents. We decided that we would charge a nominal fee to get into the carnival. People could then buy tickets to play the various carnival games. We would have two centrally located ticket booths. Each of the carnival games would cost between two to six tickets depending on the size of the prize for that particular game. The games for the younger kids would cost one ticket because the prizes were very inexpensive. By having people pay with tickets at the various game sights we did not have to worry about having multiple cash boxes. We also had a different colored ticket for food items.
The band members would volunteer to man the carnival games. They decided that they wanted to dress up like clowns to add to the carnival atmosphere. The home economics teacher agreed that the band members could bake bars and cookies in the home economics area after school. Those students that were both in band and home economics were given extra credit for developing a budget for the ingredients needed and then going comparison shopping to purchase the items. The bars and cookies were sold at the carnival along with hot dogs and popcorn.
The carnival night was a fun time. There was great cooperation for those on the committee and the band members. All the different age groups seemed to enjoy the carnival games that were played.
