How Teens Can Raise Money to Help Haiti on Valentine's Day

If you are looking for a way for your school to get involved in raising money for Haitian earthquake victims, Valentine's Day offers the perfect opportunity. Help Haiti by selling other teens at your school Valentine's in a 'Hearts for Haiti' themed fundraiser. Donate all the proceeds to a reputable charity for Haiti. It takes little effort for teenagers to follow these simple fundraising steps, but their involvement could help improve the life of a Haitian teen.

On Valentine's Day the 7.0 earthquake that struck Haiti will be a month behind us, but most of the devastation will still be there. The people of Haiti will still need our help, as they try to regain their health and rebuild their country. Teenagers can use this day of love as a theme to center their charitable efforts around.

Start Organizing Your School's Haiti Fundraiser

Once you make the decision to hold a Valentine's fundraiser for Haiti, you will need to get organized. Find out which of your friends or other school members would like to help and form a committee. If you are already part of an activity or student council, see if that group would like to hold the event. Delegate tasks to everyone, so no one is overwhelmed with responsibility. Have yourself or another student be in charge of making sure everyone is on schedule.

Get approval from school authorities. Your teach or principal can point you in the direction of who to talk to. See if your school will allow someone to man the booth during study hall hours. They can make sales and deliveries.

If for some reason your school doesn't allow the sale of goods on school property, ask them where it would be okay to set up shop. Make your sales before school, during off campus lunch hours and after school.

What to Sell for a Helping Haiti Valentine's Fundraiser

Using Valentine's Day as the theme, teens can either make or purchase Valentine's cards to sell at their school. if you are going to make these cards, get together with a group of friends and make it a party. Make cards out of construction paper or design printable ones online. Print with a colored printer. If you do not have a printer, see if your local copy shop will do them for free. Explain that the cards' proceeds will be going to help Haitian earthquake victims and they would be named as a sponsor of your fundraiser. You may even get them to throw in a banner. Be sure to list all sponsors on it.

If you are going to purchase the cards, try getting them from dollar an item stores. This will lower your overhead and increase the amount you will be able to send to Haiti. You can even ask to speak with local store managers, to see if they have any cards to donate to your high schools fundraiser.

Flowers are another item you can sell. See if your florist can give you wholesale prices, so more money can go towards helping Haiti. Since roses are so expensive around Valentine's Day, you may want to look into purchasing cheaper flowers, such as carnations. Carnations could be a hot item for teens to give to their friends.

Other items teens can sell include balloons, heart suckers and cookies. If you know teens with excellent singing voices, see if they will volunteer to be hired out for singing Valentines. If you have a digital camera, you could try a Valentine's photo booth.

Advertise Your Haiti Fundraising Event

If your school has a newspaper, blog, radio station or television station, see if they can advertise your Haitian earthquake victim fundraiser. Ask for permission to hang up signs, at least a week before Valentine's Day. Make sure to include prices, so other students know how much money they might want to bring.

Contact your local newspapers and television stations. They may want to cover the event or at least give your school's effort some free press.

How to Donate the Money to Haiti

Do your research and make sure you are donating the money to legitimate Haitian earthquake relief organizations. You will want to make sure your donation will actually be put to use in Haiti. Legit charities include the American Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders. If you are unsure which charity to donate to, have an adult help you.

Sources:

http://american.redcross.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ntld_main&s_subsrc=RCO_ResponseStateSection

http://doctorswithoutborders.org/index.cfm