NEW YORK — When Beth Hendrickson first proposed selling garbage bags instead of candy as a school fundraiser, “people laughed at us.”
They don’t laugh anymore. Hendrickson, principal of St. Ann Interparochial School in Morganfield, Ky., says the school makes $20,000 a year selling garbage bags. And it’s not just parents of the school’s 230 students who buy them. Local businesses and government offices in Morganfield — population 3,500 — buy garbage bags from the school as well.
“Nobody needs candy,” Hendrickson says. “But trash bags — that’s something everybody needs.”
The trash bag sale, done through Bags for Bucks, is just one alternative to the candy-and-gift wrap sales that so many communities hold when school fundraising efforts resume each fall. Some PTAs are going high-tech, using online platforms to solicit and process donations, selling digital images of kids’ artwork on coffee mugs or magnets, and hosting scavenger hunts where clues are collected with cellphone photos. And a few school groups have stopped selling products altogether, instead encouraging parents to simply write checks.
Alternative products
But others, like Hendrickson, are experimenting with sales of unusual products. The garbage bags were such a hit that when a company called Amadora approached Hendrickson about selling bed sheets, she gave it a try. The first year, the school sold about $16,000 worth of sheets to fund new classroom technology. Last year, sheet sales dropped to $9,000 — after all, how many sheets do families at one small school need? — but the company introduced new prints this year, so Hendrickson’s giving it another go.