How to raise funds easily with a PTA or HSA at Christmas

What is a PTA/HSA?

PTA stands for "Parents and Teachers Association" and HSA stands for "Home and School Association", they're the same thing but HSA is a bit more of an inclusive term as it includes more than just parents and teachers. 

It is often assumed that the HSA is all about fundraising whether that is for the school or for charity, but it is much more than just that. The goal is simple. The mission for the HSA is to make the school a better place and strengthen the community, meaning any members could be involved with anything from being part of discussion panels to helping put chairs away after a school concert or even my favourite, bingo calling.

If you are interested to learn more about HSAs, check ut Parentkind a national charity and membership organisation that provides support and guidance to thousands of parent associations in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. 

Why do schools need to raise money?

As someone who was a member of the HSA for seven years, I know that the emphasis can heavily be on fundraising and many schools are increasingly feeling the pressure to find ways to raise funds for equipment, experiences or improvements to the school because of budget cutbacks.

How to raise funds easily with a PTA or HSA at Christmas

From my experience in the HSA, I would say that the majority of people involved are very busy, they're usually working full time and care deeply enough about their community and their child's school experience to squeeze in this extra commitment. This means, we really need to be smart with our time and work out the best way to efficiently and painlessly raise money. 

Here are a few of the easiest fundraisers that have worked for me

1. Ice cream Fridays!

It is never too cold for Ice-cream so come sun or snow, Ice - cream fridays can be an easy winner for schools wishing to raise money. As a bobby bonus - there's an educational element to it too.

• Spend £20 on own brand ice lollies or ice creams. We used to get a combination of the strawberry and the toffee cornets priced at £1.25 for a pack of 6. This would provide us 96 cornets.
• Get the older children from the school council or after school club to sell the ice creams at a stand as the children are leaving school.
• Sell the ice creams for 50p each.

96 x 50p = £48.00 making a profit of £28.00 each week. in a month, that's over £100. 

2. Honesty box jumble

Hosting a jumble sale can be fun and help raise lots of money. The big challenge is getting volunteers to help out on the day so we thought up a different way of jumbling!

• Ask the school to send out a letter asking for jumble donations to be dropped into school by a certain date.
• Ask volunteers or children to help organise the jumble into catergories. For example, clothes, shoes, toys.
• You will host your honesty box jumbles once a week over a few weeks. Decide which catergory you will do each week and ask the school to tell the parents the details.
• On the day, a volunteer will put out a table with the jumble. Next to the jumble, they will place an old margarine tub with a lid and label on saying, 'Honesty box'
• People dropping their children off can help themselves to items and pop in a donation if they choose to. 
• Children from the upper school help take in the money and any left over jumble.
• You do this for a few weeks then anything left over can be donated to a local charity such as Shelter.

This is also a nice way of helping families who might be struggling in these difficult times.

3. Partner with a local business

It is surprising how many entrepreneurs there are these days and I can almost guarantee that within your pupil's network there will be someone involved in franchise type opportunities such as Tropic, Arbonne and Avon. Ask the school to send out a letter to say they are looking for opportunities to raise money for the school whilst supporting local businesses. Businesses can then get in touch with their mutually beneficial idea.

We work with schools and nurseries to sell our personalised wooden baubles. The efficiency in working with bulk means we can pass on savings to the school and the parents. We sell the baubles at a discounted price to the parents and donate a certain amount to the school for each sale we make. Win win!

If you would like to talk to us about raising money by selling our baubles, get in touch with me, Peter at info@cherrygrovecraft.co.uk.