A better school fundraiser

If you have school-age children and your house is anything like ours, you’ve been writing checks, one after the other, for the last few weeks. (What’s a check? It’s an antiquated piece of paper that predates electronic payments, and it’s the only thing accepted by the chess club, the Brownie troop, the Lego club, and so on.) I mean, we even have to cough up twenty bucks for a classroom water dispenser, the better to ward off all those H1N1 germs conspiring around the water fountain, I presume.

Kids are milling around the local transfer station (town dump, to the uninitiated) selling citrus fruit for the school band, tickets to the fabulous sixth-grade spaghetti supper, and discount cards to support the football team. The trash has got to get dumped, so there is no way to hide.

All this, and the dreaded Fundraising Scheme Season has barely even begun. Oh yes, the brochures are sure to start coming home in those little backpacks any day now.  The first one in our town, if I remember correctly, is the annual Gift Wrap sale. For a small fortune you, too, can purchase overpriced bags and bows and help your school raise the pennies it needs for materials and supplies. Or you can recycle the glossy brochure — back to the dump! — and feel like a heel for not supporting your kids’ education. Yes, that’s what taxes are for, but budgets being what they are, all schools are forced to get the extras where they can, and little kids are made to feel like their parents are humbug-shouting Dickensian bean counters because they refuse to pony up at every opportunity.

Can’t we just write one check upfront and forego all the full-color flyers?

So I was less than amused to get an email from the daughter of a friend in another state schilling for her school’s fundraiser. Haven’t I already spent enough money supporting my kids’ school? But this is a very good friend and I adore his family, so I clicked on the link anyway and discovered a neat little nonprofit that may assuage some of the annoyance of school fundraisers.

It’s called A Part of Something Big, and it was started by another like-minded parent named Richard Averitt who balked at the constant solicitations to buy  useless products to support his son’s school. Averitt is an entrepreneur who once performed with Up With People (who knew they still existed? see page four) and was also an officer at The Well Project, a nonprofit resource group for women living with HIV. His new fundraising organization accepts the reality that, in today’s climate, schools have to hold the contemporary equivalent of bake sales in order to provide funding for much-needed extras. No getting around that. But it enhances the concept by trying to do some good for the world while raising pennies for the school.

According to its website, the operation only sells products that are either produced by micro-economic enterprises or sourced from co-op producers or products that are earth-friendly or fair trade goods. A quick glance through the shop shows some nice things made by artisans from all over the world, including goods made from recycled plastic. (I’m not so sure about the water bottles, but I assume the rationale is that folks who drink from their own refillable water bottle are not contributing to the landfill with throwaway plastic containers.)

The website also says that it offers an educational series that teachers can use in the classroom to complement the fundraising effort. I can’t vouch for the “curriculum,” as it looks mainly like links to online resources about geography and such. And it takes a dedicated school to stray from its own mandated curriculum to use class time to support a fundraiser, no matter how worthy. But it’s an interesting idea to attempt to involve the students in a cause that raises money for the school at home and for citizens in need in other places.

At any rate, it’s got to be better than gift wrap. And here’s another distinction. It conducts all its business online. No more checks! No more catalogs! And judging from the email I received, A Part of Something Big  encourages the kids to think globally, which is a good thing.