Crop HELP!

[FantasticDisFamily]

Ok folks I'm looking for your help - specifically information and ideas!

My troop of Senior Girl Scouts is in the process (long process) of fundraising to help off set the costs of a trip to Europe in 2007. We finally were able to get our council authorities to understand what a crop is! Yea I know how could they NOT KNOW?????

Anyway, I recall some threads on here about other civic organization crop fundraisers and information on companies that might donate door prizes. If anyone has that list can you PM me please?

Also, presuming you knew this was a fundraiser for a worthy cause (we think so & hopefully those attending will also) how much would you be willing to pay? The plan is Friday 5-midnight & Sat 9-4 with a price per segment and a discounted price if someone signs up for both segments.

Besides a reasonably sized area to work what do you expect to receive for your admission? If food is served what sort of food? Note: we won't have a working kitchen to use but can bring in hot food - moms will do that.

We plan to have a CM rep there and perhaps a Stampin Up rep as well - because it is Girl Scouts they can not be "actively" demonstrating/selling but as we explained to council - people at crops expect at least some there as a courtesy in case they run out of stuff.

What about door prizes? Other prizes? Again because of the GS rules we can't have a separate raffle sale for prizes but would you pay extra (how much) if door prize drawing tickets were included?

Those of you who have done charity/fundraising crops any and all insight is welcome and most appreciated!

TIA!
Deb

 

[WDWMom]

The few fundraising crops I've seen are about $30 and include crop spot, lunch (can be as easy as pizza or subs) and door prizes.

 

[wtpclc]

I know crock pots of soup and bread have worked really well for lunch before.

 

[goofymom/pop]

I went to a crop last Saturday from 10-10pm The cost was $30 and included

coffee and coffee cakes for breakfast..
soda/bottled water all day
lunch (wrap, potatoe salad, chips, veggies and dip, and cookies)
dinner (chicken parm, salad, pasta, cookies and other desserts)
each cropper recieved a folder with incentives from CM and a free sticker pack.
and a little dish of candies to eat while cropping.

Now this is way too much food for a 9-4 crop but you could do a nice pasta dish really cheap, a salad, rolls and cookies for dessert. If you make it, you should be able to do it very cheaply. Plus you can use those electric roasters to keep food hot, and a cooler to store salad items until lunch.

As for the pop and water, have lots on hand but maybe since its a fund raiser include coffee in the a.m. and a soda or water with lunch. Charge 50 cents for each additional one.

Put little dishes of m & m's on the tables for easy but neat snacking.

As for the handouts or freebies....can you see if your CM and SU consultants can help with that? Have them set up a make and take , so this way they are not "demonstrating" but providing a freebie to the guests (they are showing off their product but it doesn't have to look that way )

Then you have each girl provide a $10 scrapbooking item or gift card, plus a item for lunch/dinner...(pasta, lettuce, tomatoes, dressing, cookies etc) This takes care of the cost of lunch and hourly prizes.

I went around to all my local businesses and got great raffle prizes to give out at our baseball benefit this week. Don't forget camera stores, a gift card for film developing is a great prize. Use these as more door and hourly prizes.Oh and ask the local grocery store you frequent to donate boxes of pasta or sauce.....never hurts to ask.

You have two sessions so you will need a bunch of giveaways...so really hit the local businesses hard! Tell them what your doing, you will be surprised how well you will do.

Check with local churches for space for free.

I would try to provide a table per person if you can....its just better.

If you can get most of the stuff donated....you will make the $30 per person that you charge. I am big on getting it for free so your fund raiser is profitable. The one I held this past weekend cost the team nothing...I printed the tickets on my computer, got the raffle prizes free, the food totally donated (it was a cash drink situation) the parents did all the baking....and we made $2310.00 in one evening.

You can do this but get the whole troop to help. You need people to set up, tear down, serve lunch, offer assistance to guests.....you can do it!!! and you can make the money too!

Just advertise that the ticket includes a workspace, lunch or dinner/2 drinks per person/make and takes/hourly door prizes and time to work on your albums. I think you will sell tickets easily.

Hey you can even include an idea booklet per guest.....Ask your consultants for their recent guest idea sheets, and then add some little tidbits you find from the internet or here on the dis board. Put them into a little folder, with a guest nametag, and a pack of winter stickers and voila you have a nice handout. Put in there a letter to explaining what and why you are doing this event. Put a phone number where they can reach you if they would like to help out by making a donation to the trip.

Ok enough for now.... hope this helps

 

[MazdaUK]

I wish we had these over here!

 

[FantasticDisFamily]

Goofymom/pop thanks for all the great ideas! And Carrie the soup and bread are also good - especially for Friday night.

MazdaUK - we're actually doing this to head your way! Unfotunately I don't think any of our planned stops are in Kent....and if I tried to haul my scrapping stuff with us the girls would literally commit me to the loony bin! We'd love to have you if you.

Deb

 

[JuneCleaver]

What about doing a baked potato bar for lunch? The potatoes once they are baked will stay hot in a cooler for hours! Put out cheese, salsa, broccoli with cheese sauce, and bacon bits, sour cream, etc.

June

 

[ReAnSt]

Good luck to your girls as they to earn money for their trip to Europe. That is such an awesome trip to do for a Girl Scout troop. I only wish I could have done it when I was a Senior Girl Scout but I ended up as the only one in my troop.

Good luck with council and fundraising hopefully yours isn't as restrictive as ours is. For us to get anything donated it has to go through council because they don't want to miss out on large donations to council by having troops constantly getting $20 items here and there.

Another idea might be a bake sale to sell items at your event. Or even just donation boxes at the event.

What about having the girls make up scrapping kits-maybe paper bag album kits, paint can kits, predesigned layouts to just add pictures, card making kits to sell at the event or have them buy supplies and they sell them at the event instead of having the others sell them. Although they might not let you sell the items either depending on how they interpret things.

Becky

 

[FantasticDisFamily]

Thanks Becky. Those are some really good ideas - we just finished about 100 Christmas cards to sell at the Christmas Tea we are doing in a couple weeks in one of the local towns as part of their holiday celebration. The only restriction they gave us on selling stuff was that we can't sell any "commercial" products. But I will admit we are doing some don't ask don't tell on the things we're making as part of some of the other events. But that could be a really good idea. Will have to run it past the girls.

Once we got the council rep to understand what some of these ideas were they did approve a whole raft of things that we will do over the next 18 months - they let us get away with putting TBD in a lot of the detail areas. Probably because there is such a huge emphasis on keeping the older girls involved and we have a troop of 6 seniors who meet every single week, are very active, etc, etc. So they don't want to rock our boat too much because they also know our girls are really outspoken AND spend a good deal of time with younger Scouts encouraging them to stay in Scouting because this is when you get to do the fun stuff!

Deb

 

[ReAnSt]

Wow, I wish they would let girls here do multiple fundraisers here. Even the older girls have a limit to how many fundraisers and when the can do them. Good luck to them as they earn their money. That will be an awesome trip, I am sure they will remember for many years.

Also, if any of them decide to work on their Gold Award encourage them to start as soon as possible. They are better off finishing it early in order to apply for scholarships and other awards. I missed out on the scholarships, since I did not receive mine until December of my freshman year in college due to paperwork issues and therefore missed alot of the scholarship deadlines.

Becky

 

[scrapcreator]

I think what you are doing is absolutely awesome! Congratulations to you and your girls for working so hard toward what sounds like a wonderful trip. You've got some great advice from everyone and I hope you have a wonderful turnout. I'm going to keep these ideas in mind because I hope our troop continues on and our troop is able to do these kinds of things.

Best of luck!

Jeanne

 

[FantasticDisFamily]

Thanks for all the good advice and encouragement.

Becky, in order to do all of these additional fundraisers we have to participate in both the fall products and cookie sales. And had to have a track record of doing so consistently. 11 years and we haven't missed a one.

My girls have a new slogan - we're getting to Europe one cookie, one pop can and one photo (the crop) at a time.

We have already begun working on our Gold Award. When everyone finished Silver last year we bridged up to Seniors in December to give ourselves a 6 month jump on the process. We are making progress and will do a review to see where we are in two weeks. Tonight is devoted to final tea preparations and next week we don't meet as most of the girls are involved in a massive holiday concert series with school (as are both leaders!).

Jeanne - the biggest hint I could give you on keeping your girls active and involved is to keep this in mind: if it is good for the girls, if it isn't then don't waste your time. We have occasionally sent noses out of joint at council because we have refused to simply accept some of their paperwork "mandates". But always with an explanation - there is only so much time, if we do this so it makes your reporting easier then we don't have time to do what is needed for the girls. And that usually ended the discussion. Given that of our 6, 4 serve with an elite unit made up of 65 girls chosen from 4 councils (40% of our councils contingent), 4 have earned Silver, and all 6 are actively working on Gold, they meet nearly every week, are participating in all sorts of community events including representing council at NUMEROUS ceremonies and such they are hard pressed to argue with us!

Remember middle school will be a killer but keep going. By high school it does get different but in a much more fun way.

Thanks again all!
Deb