Wow, I'm shocked my mom didn't post on this yet. When I was 10 my dance group went to dance in the MK and I paid for every penny through my fund raising (that was airfare for me and my mother, 5 day hoppers, hotel on property, 100% of food, and souvenirs). And then we started over and did it again the next year. It was a lot of work but we did the majority of it outside the studio. First off we did the door to door with the entertainment books and candy bars. I am very pro candy bar sales because people will be willing to donate a dollar to a kid for their trip when they wouldn't if you were selling the popcorn or other expensive stuff. We also talked to the management at our local media play and we were allowed to set up a table beyond the cash registers selling our candy bars, my sister and I talked to EVERY person before they left the store. One guy had to keep coming in and kept ignoring us, BUT he eventually came and bought some because he's never seen kids as persistent as we were. We never missed him when he left the store and he came in and out probably 5 or 6 times. We also made our own chocolate flower thingies, you used chocolate kisses as the center and curly q things coming off to make flowers which we also sold leading up to mothers day. We did a yard sale at our annual neighborhood sale and I came up with the idea of renting a cotton candy machine to run that weekend. It cost a bit to rent and buy the supplies but we made quite a bit of profit off of it. I remember setting it up again after dinner Friday night because all the neighborhood kids came down to buy some because it was just such a treat. The studio also held a auction thing, not sure what it's called, where you buy tickets and put them in a basket. Well each kid was required to bring three baskets that you make or are donated from local businesses. We went around to local businesses and got donated baskets. I'm sure there were other things that we did but those are the big things I'm thinking of now. It was a lot of hard and I'm quite sure that I was the only kid on the trip who paid her entire way but my parents say the time investment they made for me was worth every second. Sure they could have easily paid for the trip themselves but the ten year old me learned so many life lessons about saving and money management, etc that it was worth the time investment they gave to me. They say the best moment of the trip was when I walked into one of the many stores at Disney and picked up something, and my mom asked if I wanted it and reminded me I did have the money, and I looked at it and put it down saying it wasn't worth it because I'd have to sell X number of candy bars.
Good luck with your fund raising efforts!
And it RAINED, well, Poured all day. We did it in the town parking lot and used picnic canopies and had tons and tons of sales. Price everything to sell and it will. Also make sure to arrange for a charity to do a pick up on the Monday after. We had people dropping stuff off through out the sale even as late as an hour before closing.
But this one takes at least a month or two of lead time to sell that many balls.
I am not exactly sure how our school sets this up but.........
