Have a Yard Sale Fundraiser at Your School

With all the budget cuts that school's face, PTA's have to think up ways to earn money to help fund items the school needs as well as money for putting on fun events for the families of the school to keep up school spirit. I am currently president to my children's school Booster Club (similar to a PTA/PTO) and one of the things that we've done is a yard sale that is held at our elementary school. It is not that difficult to do and if done right, can earn your school a lot of money. This article lists a few tips on how to get one started at your school.

#1: Pick a Good Date

The right date for your yard sale can be key in earning lots of money. Try to pick a date for your yard sale that is close to when people usually get paid. It also should not be immediately after a major holiday or school vacation when people probably have spent all their money during the vacation or on the holiday and won't have extras for buying stuff at a school yard sale. The right date to sell can earn you more money then a bad one.

#2: Rent Out Spaces

Our elementary school has a nice size track. We rent out spaces for $10 dollars and families at the school can bring their own table, items to sell and set up shop in their space. That alone will earn your school money. If you get twenty people to sign up, that's $200 hundred dollars for your school. Rent out spaces well in advance. That way you know how many people will be selling and you can use some of the money to payu for an ad in the newspaper promoting the sale.

#3: Ask for 10% of Sales

Besides being a yard sale, this is also a school fundraiser and the people selling at your school know this. Strongly suggest to the people who bought a spot that one of the requirements is that 10% of what they sell goes back to your school. So if they sell $300 dollars worth of items, they give you $30 dollars in addition to what they paid for the spot. It's an honor system because you won't know for sure how much they sell but hopefully they will give some back to the school.

#4: Sell Food

Selling food is a good idea because people may want something to eat before or after they shop at the sale. A lot of yard sale shoppers are early birds so they don't take the time to eat first. Your sale will probably fall between two prime eating times, breakfast and lunch. You can sell muffins, bagels, doughnuts, fresh fruit, coffee, hot chocolate, etc for breakfast and something for lunch or pick one or two foods and have them available the duration of the sale.

#5: Mini Carnival

Have something for the kids by putting on a mini carnival along with your yard sale. Sell tickets for the games to earn even more money for your school. The games can be very simple like gossing games, balloon darts, even a cake walk. Your prizes can be small party favor toys. You can buy them from The Oriental Trading Co online.

#6: Volunteers

While you won't need a ton of volunteers, you will need a few people to mark whose space is whose for the yard sale, people to sell food and tickets for the games as well as someone to supervise the games. You can ask parents to help and if you have older kids at your school (like 6^th graders in an elementary school), you can get a few of the more mature kids to help run the games.