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A local talk radio guy wrote this in his daily column on his website and this thread reminded me of it and I agree with him 100%....................
PLEASE, NO MORE SCHOOL FUNDRAISERS
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I hate it when my kids sell things.
When some club or class or team or group wants to do a fundraiser, and they send the kids home to sell something, I hate it.
Invariably they're selling crap at exorbitant prices and just the tiniest fraction of it actually goes to the kids. It's a great racket for whoever it is skimming off the profits -- the crap-making companies or the crap-peddling salesmen or the crap-coddling schools -- but it's a ripoff for the kids.
Or more correctly, it's a ripoff for their parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, neighbors and all their dad's coworkers.
Like in our breakroom. Every other week somebody has a box of candy bars in there which is supposedly raising money for some worthy cause. The only problem is that if I walk out of the breakroom, out the door and down the corridor to the little store, I can buy the same candy bars for one-fourth the cost. They may not fund a worthy cause, but they taste just as good.
My kids like to take trips. In their junior year, up at school, they take a grand trip to Washington, D.C. It's a great experience and they love it. The problem is it costs about as much as a flight to the moon. And the cost is increased significantly by the fact that we have to have fundraisers to generate the money.
That means that some teacher somewhere is going to find some greeting cards or cheese logs or hot chocolate mixes and send the kids home with a full-color brochure and a license to rob. You spend $20 for $2 worth of merchandise and you're supposed to feel good about the fact your kid gets $1 toward his account.
The way I look at it, it would be far wiser to just give me child $10. That way I save $10, they get $9 more and I don't have to pretend to like the crap they're selling.
Honest, I don't need frozen pizzas or wall calendars or cans of flavored popcorn. The stuff is crap, the cost is crap and the return is crap.
And it doesn't teach the kids anything. I know the common wisdom is that selling stuff lets the students "earn" their trip or their new warm-ups or their team banquet or whatever other worthy cause they're pursuing. Theoretically, earning their reward in that matter helps them acquire a work ethic and gives them a sense of achievement and self-esteem.
That's a bunch of crap, too.
All selling this garbage does is teach kids that relatives, neighbors and friends have to give them money for nonsense. And usually it's the parent doing the selling. If a kid comes back from a fund-raising effort having sold a bunch of stuff, it's a sure bet that the kid didn't do the selling, usually mom did. Or dad harrassed his friends at work into buying it.
Not that I blame the parents or the kids for that. They are merely functioning within the system the schools, clubs, churches, scouts and teams set up for them.
The problem is the system, not the people.
And the system needs to change. Selling stuff -- other than stuff the students have made and generated by their own efforts -- is unwise and wasteful.
If a bunch of scouts want to cut some firewood and sell that, that's worthwhile. If the yearbook staff wants to bake some cookies and sell them in front of the grocery store, that's worthwhile. If the wrestling team wants to auction off its services as leaf rakers and snow shovelers, that's worthwhile. But, please, no more freaking scented candles. Spare me the Christmas cards and expensive-as-gold wrapping paper.
Car washes are fine. Actual work is fine. Delivering newspapers or sales circulars or truly earning the money in some other way is also fine.
But please spare me the fundraisers. They are a waste of time, money and effort.
So often fundraisers will be set up and parents have to either give hours and hours of their time -- for little return to the children -- or they will have to spend large sums of money -- with little return to the children. Often fundraising takes on a life of its own, it is a project or an exercise and the supposed point -- making money for the kids -- is lost in pointless busyness. That's not a reasonable burden.
Far better that parents just pay for what their children need. It would be less expensive and easier on the family budget. The argument against this is that some parents can't afford to pay and their children would be denied fun that other children might have. Far better for schools or advisors or scout masters to help those children find projects that let them work and pay for themselves than burden them even more selling nonsense. Oft time it is far cheaper just to make a contribution to a student's fund than it is to buy stuff from them.
Sometimes it seems like every child is selling something. And it seems like the stuff becomes ever more expensive and ever less worthwhile. Used to be they'd ask and you'd just hand them a $20 and tell them to pick out something they'd like. Anymore, that won't cover anything they're selling.
So here's my suggestion: Severly limit selling projects by children. They rip off parents, relatives, neighbors and family friends. Earning money means working, not selling high-priced crap to people who feel obligated to buy something just out of politeness. Everybody loses, including the kids. Children shouldn't be marketers for trinket companies.
The margins are too low, the price is too high, the quality is too low.
There has to be a better way.
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Shannon
http://www.laurerracing.com
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