Monthly Fish Fry
Have a monthly "Fish Fry" for your families and surrounding community. It's a
great way to give families an inexpensive afternoon/evening out and it brings in some
regular income for your center. We've been able to get our local supermarket to donate
most of the paper goods and I buy the fish and other items from them at a discount. I give
them some publicity by having a sign posted indicating their donation. My parent group
provides the labor the day of the event. I have everything ready, do the shopping etc. and
advertise.
Penny Collections
Penny collections bring in an unbelievable amount of money for us. We run a contest by age
group (age 4 and up) for a period of 2 weeks. Each room has a series of large pickle jars
to collect the pennies brought in. The room which collects the most pennies gets a pizza
party. We've used the money for new playground equipment and as a down payment on a new
van. It helps to let the parents/grandparents know how the money is going to be used. I do
this 3-4 times/year.
Winter Snow Ball
A group of us centers sponsors a "snow ball" each winter. It's open to the
community and we really talk it up so that now it's become the social "thing" to
do each January. Each center takes on a particular task (food, music, advertising, raffle
prizes etc.) so that no one center has to do everything. Each center pays in its share of
costs and then keeps the remainder from the tickets that center sold. Proceeds from any
tickets sold at the door go into a bank account as starting money for next year's ball.
Book Fair
We hold a paperback book fair in March of each year. We've used a book publisher like
Scholastic and that's worked well.
