Grab your rags, gather a variety of shoe polishes, then head for a widely populated area which caters to a lot of foot traffic. Set up your booth and get ready for business. You’re hosting a Shoe Shine Fundraiser. What a fun and unique way to approach raising money for school events and activities.
The host for this fundraiser can arrange to have several Shoe Shine Booths set up so many can get their shoes shined at once. You’ll want to pick an area that sees a lot of foot traffic. Too you want the area to be easily monitored so the students can be watched for safety reasons.
Before this event, arrange a day of practice for the students. Have them meet at the school and practice polishing the principles and teachers shoes. This way when the big day comes they’ll be pros and able to do a professional looking job of polishing the customers shoes.
Advertise this fundraiser everywhere. You can do this by sending out fliers announcing the day, time, and location it will be held. Put an ad in the local newspaper. Set up fliers in post offices, beauty shops, barber shops, grocery stores, coffee shops and churches.
This fundraiser will be of interest to the older generation since in their younger days shoe shining was a daily event many took part in, either by shining shoes or having their shoes shined. So target areas where the older crowds frequent too. Approach potential older customers with a respectful and cheerful tone.
Don’t forget when you’re sending out the fliers to include the cost of the shoe shine. Be sure to let all know this is for raising money for school functions, events, and needs. Set up a tip jar so those who want can leave tips too. A good asking price for a shoe shine could be $5.00 per pair of shoes shined. If customers want to have more than one pair shined, that’s great! Encourage them to bring all the shoes they want.
Some of the students could man a refreshment booth for those customers who’d like something to sip on and eat while getting their shoes shined. Offer drinks and some sort of sweet, like brownies or cookies. You could ask .75 for drinks and .50 for sweets. This would add more monies to go towards the fundraiser itself.
Give some thought as to how you’d want the students to dress for this fundraiser. Color coordinate t-shirts. Have them wear nice looking jeans and a nice pair of sneakers. If the girls have long hair, have them pull it back into a ponytail. Have the boys have their hair nicely comb. Encourage them to say sir and ma’am. You never know who they’ll send your way for a job well done. Too, it’s a good way to work for those tips.
If this fundraiser is a success you then might want to give thought to holding it a few times throughout they year. Who knows, maybe you’ll be starting a yearly tradition the community will come to look forward to.
