School Carnival

Ok so this post is older than Halloween, but I wanted to write about the kids' school carnival. PTA veterans brace yourselves. :)

The kids' school has a PTO instead of a PTA. This has many advantages including flexibility and ability to select your activities and not having to pay to a national or state PTA.

This carnival was back in October. They had been asking for volunteers since the back to school night in September. Two weeks before the carnival we received a packet (14 pages!!) explaining the events. They had over 200 volunteers to help, not including teachers and vendors. We even had parking lot attendants. (They had parking out on the fields as well as at a church down the street with a shuttle running every 8 minutes). Or you could pay money for reserved parking in the parking lot.

Some of the Events Included:

Silent Auction with over 500 items in the library. (They were all lined on top of the shelves.)

There were gift certificates to spas and restaurants, George Foreman grills,
tickets to sporting events, year's supply of Wheaties...
and everything in between.

Live Auction in the cafeteria. (Hosted by two teachers)

Signed sports memorabilia

Lunch with the Vikings QB

Cosmic Bowling night at the Brunswick -

entire facility for up to 40 guests w/ food

Etc. (I saw a football auctioned for $360)

Food in the cafeteria - popcorn, pizza, ice cream, etc.

Games in the gym - typical carnival games

And an Underwater world jumping castle

and a blow up maze. The Underwater

world also had a table set up with baby

sharks for the kids to touch.

Each classroom had activities ranging from Guitar Hero and Dance, Dance Revolution to cake, candy and soda walks, to a kids' store. They had a "Beauty Salon" set up in the art room where they had girls from a local salon doing the kids' hair.

They also had a local photographer there taking photos of the kids.

They also had an "ER" where they were treating "injuries." Talden got a black eye, Jacie cut open her finger, and Treven had stitches in his forehead and arm.

On top of all that they also had a raffle with prizes such as a Wii bundle worth $600. You could purchase tickets for $1 and place them in specific prize buckets.

They also had two rooms full of gift baskets. Each classroom had parents donate items to a specific theme for their room. Before the night began I thought it would be fun to support the school and bid on one of the kids' baskets. That's what I thought until I saw the bid sheet. Each basket was going for around $500!!! There were baskets for family night outs, family night ins, date nights, kids in the kitchen, gourmet kitchen, coffee & chocolate (complete with fondue sets and cappuccino machine), family sports, mother's day, father's day, girls only, all about sports, etc... It was quite amazing. They had over 30 baskets.

They had a room where you could make and take Tye-died shirts and winter hats with your name on them. And a gift store by the office selling official school district clothing. Everything from hoodies, to sweats and tees. It was crazy!

Anyway, you could purchase tickets for .25 each and each activity was 3-7 tickets, or you could purchase a wristband for $25. Since we hadn't volunteered, or donated anything we decided to get our three older kids a wristband to support the school. We also bought $5 in tickets for Josie to do a couple of things. They had a lot of fun and I wasn't sorry that they had the wristbands. It makes everything so much easier.

All in all the carnival raised: $42,000!!!!! And that is just one of 6 fundraisers they do at this school. It is craziness. Who wants to volunteer for PTO??