Ideas for a benefit raffle/bake sale

[disneygirl1971]

I am currently helping coordinate a benefit for a close friend and her family. Her husband was hospitalized the entire month of July due to an infection in the lining of his brain. He has had four brain surgeries and will be off work for many months to come. She has also been off work due to all of this along with the home healthcare he now requires. Although she will be returning to work soon they have five children and are facing huge medical and living expenses on a very small income. Does anyone have any good ideas of companies or businesses that would be willing to donate items for a raffle or silent auction? I went around town today and collected some items but it seems with all the chain stores any requests have to go through their corporate offices. That will be time consuming and I don't know how successful I will be even doing that. I don't mind helping out but I've only done one benefit similiar to this and it was for our local music union's youth scholarship fund, which it seems most everyone I asked was willing to donate to. As everyone knows companies everywhere are cutting back and I don't know how easy it will be this time around. All the paperwork is in order and registered with the city etc. and I have copies of that. Also, I need some good ideas of budget bake sale items. I would like something easy, not to expensive, and not messy. The benefit wasn't my idea but it seems like a lot is quickly falling into my lap. I honestly don't mind helping out, as I'd hope someone would do the same for my family in that type of situation. But as most of us here, I have a very busy family and limited time to work with. Any ideas you would have I'd greatly appreciate. TIA

 

[MandM-Mom]

Contact your local service organizations! I would write up a letter explaining the situation and than include a picture of the family. I was president of our Fire Dept Aux. for 4 years and we frequently got requests and put basket donations together, we would pick a theme and then all bring an item for the basket, eassemble it, shrink wrap it and then deliver to the group or person putting on the benefit. Our bylaws prohibit us from giving with Fire Dept money but we are always willing to give as a group in general since we have asked for donations during fundraisers in the past. Also tix to upcoming events are popular items to raffle and can usually be donated, just use the letter to get your benefit info outhere to places you think would be able to help you. Good Luck!

 

[coolbeans]

contact local restaurants to see if they offer fundraiser nites, Pizza Inn and Pizza Hut both do. You basically take enough supporters in to run the restaurant (with the help of just enough people that actually know what they are doing) and they split the profits and you get all your tips for waiting tables. (we have done this twice so far and it is a lot of work and a lot of fun!!) We have also done yard sales (adding baked goods and crafts), and are now working on a spaghetti dinner for the end of the month!

 

[Minnie M6]

If you know any sales reps for companies like Pampered Chef, Tastefully Simple, Mary Kay, etc. they may be willing to donate items for a silent auction- in return you could include their business cards in your display and/ or mention them on your flyers. Local businesses were better than chain stores in my experience- we had a silent auction for a coworker whose little boy needed a heart transplant. Another thing we did was worked with a local pizza restaurant on a fundraiser as a PP mentioned. The way ours worked was this restaurant donated 25% of all sales on a particular day when the customer mentioned the fundraiser. We were able to get TV and radio to mention the fundraiser, which helped a lot. My church was instrumental in getting the work out also.

We also had a bake sale and a hot dog sale in our office (100 employees) which were very successful. Brownies are good and you can make so many different kinds. There's an easy peanut butter fudge recipe I got from allrecipes which is just peanut butter, frosting, and one other ingredient which I can't think of right now.....rice krispie treats, and of course chocolate chip cookies.

Good luck- make sure to delegate so you don't get overwhelmed!

 

[SoonipiLady]

is to go to local trades people. They are very often willing to donate time instead of an item. It may only be a few hours, but with things as tight as they are now, if someone needs a light switch re-wired and doesn't know how to do it, they may be willing to pay $5.00 for a raffle ticket for a cahnce to win the services from a local electrician.

You can also go to local service stations and see if they will donate state inspections, oil changes, tune-ups, air conditioning re-charging, etc.

The local conveinience stores will often let you put a donation jar by the register.

You don't say where you're from, so I don't know if you are in a rural or populated area. We are fairly rural here and quite often the local farmers will donate a basket of veggies or fruit. For a family of 7 a bushel of apples would be helpful. For raffles, they have donated "gift Certificates" good towards pyo apples, pumpkins, blueberries.

If you decide to do a spaghetti dinner type event, having a chinese action in conjunction with it sometimes is a good way to draw more donations/customers. If they are donationg the products, they will quite often let you post information on the event in their stores.

Also since I assume that the kids (at least some of them) are in school, cointact the PTOs in their schools and see if they will help sponser the event. If they will, then you can ususally send home notices with all the kids announcing the events. Send home bright colored anouncements, and the parents are sure to see them.

Finally, contact the local newpapers to see if they will donate the space to advertise the event before and the Thank-you ad after. It canalso be a selling point for the local businesses if you let them know that their generosity will be acknowledged in the local papers/community TV/ local TV stations.


As far as baked goods, go to BJs or one of the other box stores, and get buckets of cookie dough in the refrigerated section. Also in the dry goods section they usually have large size brownie mixes. Get a few disposable large sheet pans and make a jumbo batch of those. If you want to jazz them up, add white chocolate or Peanut butter chips. I also make chocoalte raspberry brownies by making a tray of brownies, then taking a small jar of raspberry jam and stiring it up so it's pourable. I them pour it in lines all over the surface then run a knife tip through the jam lines to swirl it around. People love them! You can even make a little frosting with cream and powdered sugar and drizzle it over them once they are cool. People don't expect gourmet, just their favorites at a bake sale.

I think it's wonderful that you have taken on this!

God Bless you. I know that it can be really difficult to oarganize it all. I hope your different events are a hit!

Karen

 

[MightyMom]

A few months ago I posted a similar post.

A very good friend of mine is 31 years old and has breast cancer that's spread to her lungs and liver.

She stopped working...... and her husband's job takes him away for a week at a time. She has a 14 month old and a 5 year old.

I organized a HUGE fundraiser for her. We raised nearly $8,000.

I organized a BBQ plate fundraiser. We sold 1,000 at $6.00 each (plate came with a drink also)

I managed to get ALL the items for the BBQ donated.... so the $6,000 we made on the BBQ plate tickets was pure profit.

On the same day we had people picking up the BBQ plates..... I also organized a HUGE rummage sale. We nearly $2,000. We also had a bake sale that same day.

Put your mind and heart in it.... and you'll be able to pull off a great fundraiser for your friend.

 

[disneygirl1971]

Thanks so much everyone for all the great ideas! Please keep them coming. I will try the local groups such as the fire dept. aux. etc. I did consider local churches, but unfortunately the family nor any of their close family belong to one so I didn't know if that would work. Our church is very small and nearly 40 minutes away. Thanks for the school PTO idea. Their 10yr old twins attend the same school as my DS10. I've put other kids through the same school so I know some of the staff/teachers. I was going to just ask their teachers but the PTO is a better idea to start with. They are having a spaghetti dinner and the family booked and took care of all that along with the benefit flyers, thankfully She's trying to return to work tomorrow. He's on a pic line (IV?) at home now and she's relying on the oldest DD18 to take care of all that and meds while she does Unfortunately, like so many they live paycheck to paycheck so she has to go back asap. It will be rough enough living without his income for many months to come. I've jotted down all these great ideas. Raspberry brownines, yum! Since she's going back to work I told her to circulate a signup sheet for the baked items. I know she hates to ask but I've assured her people are very willing to help if they just know what to do. And besides, if people can't bake, store buy I told her Thanks for all the great ideas!

 

[Juliah]

A few things we learned after doing bake sales for years for a local charity...

We found that people went for baked goods that were colorful, fun, or different. One example that's super easy--we bought prepared round sugar cookies (Archway brand) on sale and iced them with pink icing, then put a narrow band of green icing around the edge. This could be homemade confectioner's sugar frosting or the kind in the can. Then we sprinkled mini chocolate chips on the pink part to make them look like slices of watermelon. They always sold better than things like homemade oatmeal cookies that were, no doubt, delicious, but didn't look as appealing.

Fudge and pie always sold really well. I guess not as many people make those themselves as other baked goods, like chocolate chip cookies? Also, we made more money off a pie if we cut it into slices and put each one on a disposable plate than if we sold the whole pie.

We asked people donating baked goods to put them in sandwich bags or wrap them in plastic wrap in individual serving sizes. They didn't mind, and it saved us the time and cost of wrapping stuff. We did come prepared with some baggies, plastic wrap, and plates just in case people forgot.

To make giving change easier, we never sold anything for less than a quarter and priced things in increments of 25 cents. That way, we didn't need to have any pennies, nickels, or dimes up front.

We also found that people would pay whatever we priced the baked goods for. I never heard anyone complain about the prices; they knew it was for charity. Likewise, we had many kind souls who bought a bag of cookies and gave us a $20 bill or even a hundred and said to keep the change.

Good luck and best wishes to the family.

 

[kc10family]

What fabulous ideas you all have.
I do hope to hear the OP does well with the fundraiser.