Selling stuff for my child's school

0 votes

My 5-year old has been sent home this year with raffle tickets to sell, pledges to collect for spelling, pledges to collect for doing math, and a couple other things that are escaping me right now.  We donate our time and we've made donations to both the school and the classroom (and this is not "extra" money we donated -- it is from our house fund savings).  But no matter what we do, every time we turn around someone at the school is asking us to collect more money in different ways.  I'm totally irritated.  I feel like we're already doing the most we can do and that it is best to just give a chunk of money instead of small bits here and there.  Do I just blow it off?  I'm not going to have our kid hit up friends, family, and neighbors.  Is that wrong?

Anonymous

Mar 8, 2010

1 Answers

  • 0 votes

    I am with you on this. Everybody's budgets are squeezed to the limit these days. And I'm sick of being hit up for donations all the time too.

    But it's a real dilema for schools as well, they have had their budgets slashed and are trying to fill the gaps. I volunteer for our two son's schools too, and am being asked to help hit other parents up for more money. I hate it. At the private preschool I'm extra irritated. I say just raise the tuition to cover what it really costs run the school and stop asking me for all this extra money!
    At the older son's public school, I'm angry that the taxes we pay don't pay our son's teacher a living wage. She has to clean houses on the weekend to make ends (almost) meet. So I try not to let the fundraising bother me as much there.

    All that said, I think all these fundraising efforts are fine for people who don't mind. When I feel like it's too much, I just throw it in the recycle bin. They can't require it of you if it's a public school, and if it's private, you have a pretty good voice to protest because you pay tuition.
    Lindsay

    San Mateo, CA

    Mar 9, 2010



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