Seem a little early to be thinking about Christmas? It’s not, I promise!
The holidays offer some great adoption fundraiser ideas and I especially love this one from the Teply family. They added Santa to their pancake breakfast fundraiser!
A pancake breakfast fundraiser is a great idea in itself. Families have made several thousand dollars with this idea (like the Burden family). But give a mom a chance to get her kids pictures with Santa WITHOUT going to the mall and you have hit the jackpot!! No mom wants to stand in line for an hour (or more) for the over-priced photo in which their child may or may not look totally terrified of the strange man in the beard.
The Teply’s had a great crew of friends helping them out with their fundraiser which was held at their church. They charged a per plate price of $7 for adults and $3 for kids for pancakes, sausage and a drink and then had a yummy looking topping bar!
Pictures with Santa were offered for a donation and did not require a breakfast purchase. The Teply’s asked friends and family and eventually found their Santa who generously donated his services for free. (They thanked him with a restaurant gift card.) If you’ve got someone who looks the part you could also rent a Santa Suit through a costume shop.
Someone with some good basic photography skills and a good point and shoot camera is fine for the pictures. They let people choose if they wanted to pick up printed pictures the next week at church or have the photos emailed to them. Most people chose to have the photo emailed.
They advertised the even in the local paper and on the back of their church bulletin. They also left flyers at local churches (great if you can get the flyers to the youth minister to give to parents). Jennifer also left half-sheet flyers at the restaurants that donated items and pinned flyers up on bulletin boards at the supermarkets. And of course, an event was created on Facebook. She suggested trying to distribute flyers at schools and daycare centers as well.
Around 75 people attended and the Teply’s made $1,722 with their fundraiser!! You can see some photos and read more about it on the Teply’s blog.