Light up the grills. It’s time for potato salad, baked beans, hamburgers, hot dogs, smoked sausage and chicken. Nothing says Summer better than a block party. Make it easy by moving down the block to your school parking lot! Everyone can chip in and do it up proud, potluck style.

Gather your PTO and the neighborhood watch group together and make plans. Assign a party committee to oversee the funds that will be required to purchase the extras, which will be needed for the neighborhood party. Assign who will cook what, who’ll come up with games, who’ll get the music together and who’ll run security for you. You’ll also need to assign a clean up crew. Ask your neighbors to bring their lawn chairs and fold out tables to the area or areas you’ll be setting up. Next print out fliers to give to the rest of the community announcing the event. Encourage everyone to participate.

To raise money for the fund raiser, charge a small cover for the buffet and sell tickets to play the games. Let everyone in your neighborhood know this is going towards a specific fund raising event. A suggested price you could charge is $1.00 per ticket. You can purchase tickets at a party supply store by the roll. Some game ideas you can easily set up are:

•    Kissing booth
•    Water dunking booth
•    Ring toss game
•    Sack races
•    Watermelon seed spitting contest
•    Bobbing for apples: Have a certain amount of apples they need to get in order to win, and have towels ready!
•    Fishing game for youngsters: Set up a curtain the kids can cast a small fishing pole over and tie a surprise to the line. Pull on it so they can pull it back over as if they caught a fish.
•    Wheelbarrow races
•    Egg toss
•    Bouncing tents: allow so many kids in at a time for a set time limit
•    Horse shoe throwing
•    Face painting

Prizes can often be donated from local dollar stores. For the races, first, second and third place ribbons can be found at party supplies and awards shops – you can usually get inexpensive ones donated for this as well. See if they will throw in a small trophy for the child who sells the most tickets! Try to score T-shirts from a local shop with the school pride logo – you can turn a nice profit on these and caps as well.  Sinc epeople may be staying long, provide snacks with a parallel beef jerky fundraiser.

If you plan the party to run into the evening, you’ll need to be aware that there might be curfews for when your music will need to be turned off and for when the party needs to start shutting down. This will depend on your locale and the community you live in.

A block party is always a good way for a neighborhood to come together, and your school can add a child friendly slant. You can even invite the local police department to come and talk about the importance of setting up a neighborhood watch. This will educate everyone on what to look out for and teach your children the value of caution regarding strangers. Most of the time officers will pass out stickers and coloring books pertaining to safety and the neighborhood watch program for the children.

Make your ‘block party’ a success by bringing together those who live in your district and attend your local school. Working together as a community will not only raise money for your fund raiser, but you’ll get to know those around you.

Good Old Summertime ‘Block Party’ Fundraiser is a post from: Elementary School Fundraising Ideas