Boosterthon

Our school recently did the boosterthon fundraiser.  Actually, it did about 3 fundraisers at the same time, but this was one of them.  I HATE, HATE, HATE fundraisers, and this was no exception. I especially hate that the school doesn't just ask us for money, instead they make it tricky for us to donate a flat amount.  A few weeks ago, the kids came home with info on the Boosterthon.  I had heard of this fundraiser and heard good things about it.  I did a quick google search and found that the company keeps 48% of the profits.   48%, I could barely believe it.  They come in and basically brainwash the kids for 10 days teaching them sales techniques so that they can get more money.  Then they run a small track and collect the pledges for how many laps they do.  Each lap is 1/16th of a mile.  They are allowed to collect for up to 35 laps.  They encouraged the kids to get donations per lap.  If I donated $1 per lap, that would be $105, which would be fine, but then boosterthon would get $49 of the money.  Personally, if I am going to be giving money to the school, I would prefer they got to keep it all, or at least get something to show for it, like wrapping paper.  Furthermore, I refuse to ask family and friends for money.  I don't like them asking me and so I don't allow my kids to ask them.  So, if I don't support your child, don't take it personally.

Anyway, the kids came home every day for 10 days begging for money and begging to call Aunts and Uncles and Grandma (you can thank me later that I didn't have them call you).  Then the big fun run came. The company set up a "track" on the field (if you call plastic cones set up in a circle a track).  The kids were set to run.  Each time they ran the track, they would stop at the start and have a teacher mark a mark on their backs to say how many laps they ran.  It was a nice day, a little cooler than it had been the week before for field day, so that helped.

Ellie was first.  She ran pretty well, after about 5 laps, she found a friend and ran with her friend most of the rest of the laps.  She didn't run too hard, but pretty steady, and ended up with 35 laps.

Michael's grade was next.  He got started, ran a couple of laps and then decided he didn't want to get overheated and went and got some water.  He walked the next lap, then jogged a couple of laps, stopping if he felt he was exerting himself too much, then he didn't want to get dehydrated so he went and got more water.

 This is how I saw him a lot. 

 He did end up running 38 laps, but I really had to encourage him and say things like- "Ellie got 35 laps, you don't want her to get more than you," and, "its half way time, if you don't run more laps in the second half you won't make 35."

 Adam's grade was last.  He got out and ran, and pretty much ran the whole time.  He did walk a few laps now and again and get a couple of drinks of water.   There were more kids that ran in his time slot so there was more back-up waiting for the teachers to mark the shirts.  He ended up with 45 laps. 

Obviously, it was a little hotter by the time he got out to run, plus he pushed himself.

That night, Michael decided to hit his dad up for the money that he had pledged him, at 25 cents a lap.   Joe was trying to figure out why he wanted it in cash, come to find out, Michael had thought they got to keep the money they earned from running the laps.  He was counting on that money to buy books at the book fair.  Because I hadn't entered Joe's bid for Michael into the computer, I suggested that Joe go ahead and give him the money so he could go to the book fair, as long as he didn't tell the other two kids that he had done that.

Overall, I heard that the Boosterthon earned our school $28k.  So I can see that for that much money, it is probably good to go with a company.  Question I have, is why can't the school just do their own fun run?  Problem is, I don't want to be the event organizer, and probably no one else does either....