Why Are School Catalog Fundraisers a Thing? 

So, I can't speak for your grandma, but I know a guy in my town would buy a single pack of beef sticks from every kid who knocked on his door. He loved the things. It was pure love for things, too. He was a neighbor on our street, and I remember seeing him out on his front porch, eating beef sticks and drinking; watching traffic and the neighbors watching traffic, like everyone else XD I was the kind kid who couldn't say no, but also loved to listen to people talk. I often walked away with a single sale from people who already bought from their grandkids, which I feel really manipulative about now, if I wasn't sincere in enjoying the time, even listening to a few again when I had to deliver. I never pushed a sale for my time, and readily took no for an answer, even after an hour of having my ear chatted off XDD Ah, the days and communities where you could send your kiddo out alone to hawk overpriced crap... At least one guy liked it. I appreciate our school sells branded crap from chains that don't exist out here. Had an aunt who worked at Little Caesars. She would bring home what they called a ''Salada'' : a pizza with garlic butter sauce instead of red, bacon, pineapple (can be omitted. It was a must in our house), cheese; bake; top with fresh lettuce and ranch. Got a bunch of crazy bread from a kid and cook up my own now. Starting to understand my neighbor's deal to get his fix XD

*How about you tell her in person*

i gave them to my dog

@@hilariousskullnamedcatzo647 maybe she’s dead you never know

@@trashcatlinol So he was like the chocolate dude on spongebob lmao

This SO MUCH. 💔 And the catalogs seemed so enticing so I was really sad

My school realized this and we basically would win nothing for participating.I was a child with social anxiety and obviously never took place in that and I'm glad my school never tried to shame me for it

I was poor n I liked it lol

Nah you didn’t hustle hard enough

@@texasred1000 Apparently you don’t understand that there were kids like myself who literally couldn’t participate in those fundraisers and couldn’t hide my disappointment when others won. It was basically making kids compete against each other.

Iconic.

Lol honestly tha sounds exactly like somethin my own mom would do wether it's at the dollar store, target, Walmart or any grocery store 2 be honest

Your mom is an icon

Your mom is an icon and a legend 🤣 I love that

I’m using this

Don’t talk to strangers unless you can make me money kid

In first grade a wildlife guy came to show us a bunch of animals petting zoo style. He brought out one of those giant but docile yellow boas that people keep as pets. In second grade an astronomer guy came to our elementary school to show us the "stars" in a giant portable planetarium... So the school that said don't talk to strangers also said "hey go in this dark tent and pet that guy's snake." 🤔

😊😅😮😮😢🎉😂😂🎉😢😮😅😅😅😊😊😊😊😅😊😅😢

In Canada they used to encourage us not to go door-to-door or sell to strangers so they couldn’t be held liable if we were kidnapped

The "yellow boa" was probably an albino Burmese python. Nice pets, but can be dangerous when they get really big. I had one who was over 10 feet long at the age of 9 months. I donated him to the zoo, where he lived for 29 years. (Jan Griffiths).@@xjunkxyrdxdog89

Most kids did not have success with these unless their parents had a LOT of peers in a social network or they had rich parents who just bought a ton, so not sure how that translates to MLM. MLM reminds me of this so it tells me MLM = failure lol.

@@asmrtpop2676 its due to the fact that its selling product door to door honesty the chocolate drives were way better

You are so right

@@asmrtpop2676 I never got more than a pencil sharpener

​@@asmrtpop2676that sounds exactly like an MLM, actually. Begging everyone you can to buy some overpriced garbage and guilt-tripping people who see through it is the main mechanic of an MLM, from the bottom of the pyramid. MLMs don't see product, they sell the idea of a lavish lifestyle where you can work flexible hours, be your own boss, and buy a Tesla.

I definitely feel the same way. The world is not a safe place. And teaching greed to kids. I chose not to participate in school fundraisers that involved door to door selling. It didn't feel right to me either. (Jan Griffiths).

I'm also an immigrant kid, from Hong Kong. I was lucky to grow up in socal with more immigrant asian kids and we all felt the same way as well

As a fellow Asian American, I also abhor these fundraising programs. However what I hate more is the anticompetitive contracts these fundraisers force unto the schools where parents are not allowed to donate directly in lieu of fundraising and the extreme false pretense that "this will socialize your children properly." Taking away the freedom to be voluntarily charitable is the opposite of America.

I'm glad my parents never let me participate

A phooey another autistic person that’s sick. Yeah I get how that situation could be sickeningly stressful. Sorry you experienced it

Damn.. Are You Okay Now?🙁

What the fuck 💀 I hope you’re doing better now holy shit -

Wow. I hope she gets exactly what she deserves for that kind of sick behavior.

tell her the nursing homes only days away

why she couldn't use it

@@karolnapc2.051 quadriplegic means you can’t use any limbs… how would she use the wii remote

​@@kayleighz7034 omg

Well, shit. I hope she was able to sell it for a decent amount at least.

That's... humorously ironic.

Incoming Multi-Level Mondays episode

Gotta get em young 🤧🤧

Lol true 😂🤣💀

Me too

We really don’t fund our school system enough, do we? My grandparents grumble about their taxes (I get it, it sucks,) and i think about that. It seems like a lot of the money goes to PE stuff (never have liked PE, but I get it’s nessasary.) but it seems like everything goes to PE and the teachers have to buy everything for themselves. I always have loved my teachers, I fear them because of my messed up head but I still respect them, because they have to deal with so much BS.

companies that run fundraising corps lobby politicians to keep schools underfunded and keep taxes in other places so they can keep their companies in business by making kids sell cookie dough for a sticky hand so the school can afford to get exterminators

America: 0h? The schools are being smart and finding ways of raising money? That's good! That means we shouldn't funnel as much money to them. They can just scrap and beg for money on the streets to get their cut since its working so well!

@@augustoof13 that’s bc America isn’t a real country it’s all just a scheme to pay for our military

Fr. I poor from a very low income town (tho some people were very well off because they were farmers) and it felt like we had like 4 of these a year 💀💀 I could be wrong because it's been so long but that'd how it felt ✋️😭

I’m glad you were able to get that off of your chest. I’m proud of you.

The school "lost" a lot of the things people ordered from me too.

Let it go. The buyer doesn't remember that $70 and neither should you.

Don't feel bad. These companies shouldn't target kids to sell their crap.

Honestly I kinda relate 2 ur story I mean the lady i spoke 2 when I did my middle school chorus trip fundraiser I wrote down her address but it wasn't tha I lost it it was tha the numbers on her mail box were missin so we actually had a hard time tryin 2 deliver the order but luckily we eventually were able 2 get it 2 her

If I were the parent in that situation, I would’ve immediately went to the authorities with the walkie talkies and the flyers. That’s straight up a scam.

I was promised an iPod Touch for selling a certain amount of candy bars. I received a cheap Walmart MP3 player that broke in under 3 months. Over 10 years later and I’m still pissed about it.

​@@mustardjelly6554 If I was in your situation, I would be pissed too.

​@@AiLoveAidoru If you actually do that and win a court case, the company will be forced to give you what you were promised. In this case, 2 new phones

The year we did magazine subscriptions, my family ordered like four ourselves - they were so discounted and it was like every topic under the sun! ….they never showed up. I think that one is a scam…

A DRONE???

@@squidward9747 I am just as surprised as you are.

@@squidward9747 lol it’s not anything fancy. Just a little kids toy

lol recently my school had a fundraiser similar to this, parents could pledge a certain amount of money per mile a kid ran, so we all got an hour or so that day to run. i ended up pulling a good amount of money for my grade and got a camera, needless to say, they did not skimp on prizes lol

that's what I did in 5th grade. it was pretty cool

i remember i ate most of my own stock and just lied about it

The chocolate bars are a fairly simple exchange, which I believe is what helps their success better than the catalogue. For one, the chocolate is right there, in person. People could see the selection, pay, and get their item right then and there. But I get that it's a lot easier to give a child a box of chocolate to carry around, then a random assortment of household items and snacks.

@@sariiathecatdemon1 god in middle and highschool they had to input a rule that we werent allowed to sell those chocolates in class, but tbh school was probably the best market for them. Usually it would be the band or theatre kids doing the fundraiser specifically, so there was less competition, and you would know EXACTLY where to find them during lunch or passing to get your fix. They basically taught a generation of teens to be drug dealers.

@@sariiathecatdemon1 Exactly! It has the benefit of instant gratification, when some of the other fundraisers have a wait time between purchasing and receiving whatever product.

Very true. My niece is selling chocolates, and she made three sales on the way home from school due to random people seeing her with the box.

I hated them because of how gimmicky they were.

what poor has to do with sales?

mannn i remember the dumb limo rides, they did that in middle school and ??

Our biggest prize was a ventriloquism show

What a rip-off. (Jan Griffiths).

Honestly you are not the only one. During one of the fundraisers at my school (This was around the mid 2000s) one of the prizes was a trip in a hummer limo to a restaurant for lunch and it sounded like you would be gone most of the afternoon. We were also told/promised by the spokes person that it would be equipped with a flat screen tv and a PS3. A buddy of mine along with several others sold enough to win that prize and man were they disappointed. Instead all they got was a regular limo with a dated interior, a small tv that barley worked that had a ps1 hooked up to it. Also they just went out to a near by McDonalds and back for lunch within 45 min. There is a lot of fine print that you are never told/notice as a kid, allowing these companies to exaggerate/lie about the rewards without any consequences for them. If it were up to me and my kids school had to do a fund raiser , I would require the school/catalog company to deliver on what they promised at the very least.

It is weird from the other side too - weird to expect people to open the door (because the kid might turn out to be not alone). Also since here most people live in apartment buildings, you'd have to get access to each of the communal hallways somehow.

In the same era where stranger danger was shoved down our throats nonstop no less

i remember at every assembly they would say “do not go door to door to people you don’t know” but we all knew that was the only way to get something better than some marbles. either that or have a parent who worked at a big office

So when I was an elementary school student, my parents owned a large small business, as in they had a lot of customers and quite a few employees. Through that, I made so many sales, and I think I was either the top or like the number two seller in the entire school. My school had like a whole party For kids who made enough sales, but the prizes were like absolute bottom of the barrel. I'm talking cheap carnival game level prizes, And to top it off, I remember hearing my parents and employees of my parents complaining about how absolute garbage The food they purchased was from the fundraiser.

@@cilantrho yeah I got this speech for sure, and the kids who got the most prizes always said how they didnt have to do anything cuz their parents took the catalogue to the work office.

that is insanely funny

Epic fail

This hurts to imagine

I hope that guy tried to get applause afterwards and it failed.

💗😹 The Funniest Part About Reading That Is That I Misread That As “Practicing Heroically”❣️ That & The Awkward Silence❣️ 😹💗

Same here, constantly was called out each day in my flight where each and every morning I was asked loudly how much I sold and I would always brood and say none. Every. Single. Morning. Until the damn fundraiser for selling those $1.00 chocolate bars was finished. They would even read out names and state how much everyone has made, going to the ones who made the most down to those that did no sales, stating the numbers and everything. Absolutely awful.

Yah, it seems really awful looking back that they'd try to shame kids into doing their crappy fundraiser by asking Infront of other students why they weren't selling enough. Like, you'd think they'd want more money to improve the schools for their kids, but then end up hurting the same kids in the prosses.

😒 My debate coach did the same, but I DGAF because I KNEW $30 cheesecakes in the midst of the Great Recession wouldn't sell. I tried to explain to him that only my parents would buy from me because we were in a housing and financial crisis (2008) and no one needs an overpriced cheesecake that they have to wait 6 weeks for when they can go to Cheesecake Factory and get a much bigger one immediately. 😫

​@@TomikaKellyoh you guys had the cheesecake one too? My middle school chorus did the cheesecakes too lmao

Really? We never did these in my highschool we just sold chocolate bars

This is the second comment I've seen about Jump Rope for Heart. The American School System truly is a Modern Horror.

I actually realized jump rope for heart. But I really love jump roping and the excuse to jump ropysll day and not be in the classroom was my favorite part. I never really cared to raise that much money for it, I just loved doing tricks and everyone sharing a love of jump rope...

My school did Jump Rope for Heart too! Those ducks were always coveted lol

i still got a captain america duck the presenter guy threw in the crowd i managed to catch

In elementary school we did something called a "hop-a-thon" where you had to hop on one foot and the more you hopped the more prizes you win. I remember one year I won an invisible ink pen. That's the only thing I wanted from the event so I only hopped like 40 times lol

Your parents probably realized the predatory nature of them, like my mom did.

Good karma?

Lucky, my school NEVER did that. And they wonder why I'm so bitter now, hahaha

Glad you got to join in!

Your parents hated it because they’re literally designed for kids of rich parents or kids of parents with a massive social network to win the most. My parents would try but we only had so many family friends as we were immigrants to the US. Even as a kid I saw it was rigged.

@@zyphex_Memer Zyphex pls stop spamming. I've seen you on almost every comment. 😭

@@kindlyevilbgm Agreed! It's very annoying! 😡

@@zyphex_Memerbro get a real hobby!

@@kindlyevilbgm probably a bot

that feels a little unethical. If they're in a retirement home, they shouldn't be getting advertised to by those trusted to take care of them

When this fundraiser thing came around, all I did was just keep the chocolates and forget what I was supposed to do after a day or two, I somehow didn't get shamed at thankfully.

Me too! It always gave me anxiety

I wasn't shy or anxious, but I thought even as a kid that those kinds of fundraisers just weren't what I wanted to participate in. So I never did. I was too busy with horse shows anyway. (Jan Griffiths).

We had the limo one too!! But my family was poor so we couldn't really sell to family and neighbors so I never got to go and my friend got to. It didn't matter looking back on it but at the time it sucked

Dream jelly army

Hi

Hi

I did get one of thoes and it was a limo ride with a friend to chuck e cheese

We did something similar in the Netherlands as well (kinderpostzegels, children's post stamps) but to raise funds for a charity instead, it didn't help that I was also autistic and struggled to explain the concept to a bunch of strangers in my town. I don't think I made more than a few sales each time I participated, which was oddly relieving because I hated talking to strangers There was also this older couple who pressured me to go in their house and to take candy, while they were very kind and I don't think they were malicious, it made me extremely uncomfortable because I had declined their offers and my teachers made it very clear that we should not accept anything or go into the homes of strangers.

@@CapitalLuke In my old neighborhood there was an old man and he invited me into his house for grapes and I went like an idiot. Luckily he was nice, but it was still a really dumb move on my part.

@@vamprisa1 i don't think you was dumb, you was very naive. And very lucky

I never got to do those fundraisers, and honestly I’m kinda glad for it. I’m autistic as well, but my problem wasn’t really talking to people, it was talking to them too much (still have this issue, and also I used to hug random strangers. I was a very weird kid.) If i ever got a door slammed in my face from doing one of these things I’m pretty sure I’d be traumatized and never want to talk to people again. My fundraiser I wasn’t allowed to do was cookie dough; I thought the prizes looked so cool. Now I’m bothering my family about how i remember the fundraisers and asking if they do too lol.

@@augustoof13 My problem is barely being able to talk to strangers and then suddenly talking constantly when I get comfortable around someone, and then worrying I'm annoying them and then stopping for a while. An autism train wreck honestly

…if I ask you what a hunbot is, am I going to get scarred for life? 😅

It could be worse, my schools band sold mattresses.

@@Carbon8tion there’s enough mattress “stores” on earth

@@Carbon8tion Mattresses?? At christmas our band sold boxes of oranges (I never participated bc I don't know who needs a million oranges)

@@Carbon8tion I sold mattresses too! I thought we were the only ones lol.

@@solarmoth4628 My band also sells mattresses too, weird…

Damn. That’s funny though.

they probably knew it was bullshit and wanted you guys to get out

Agreed

Did the same with my brother cool! i haven't heard about AR points in ages, my teacher used them for an easy good grade. my school did these "tornado bucks" to get stuff like little prizes you'd get them just for being good which I raked up a lot but never used them.

How much was the school's return after paying for the junk products, and the catalog company took their share? 20%? 10? Can't have been much. Such a waste of money and time

Ahead of the curve

i always wondered if the guy doing the presentation has any soul, it has to feel bad trying to scam children with shiny toys

Real. My mom didn't have the resources to take me anywhere to sell so my only hope was my grandma and she never bought anything. I felt so jealous when I saw kids receiving race cars and on the lower end bouncy balls and I got nothing

I have always felt the same about book fairs. Like let's make this big exciting days out of kids who have the money buying things from the book fair. its shitty

@@defriedpings I was one of the Book Fair Moms. I know that several of us reached into our pockets to buy a book for the kids that kept coming in and looking longingly at the books but had no money.

​@@Digglesisdeadawww that's so sweet. At my school growing up, the kids without money to spend weren't even allowed to go. It sucked that I couldn't even look around a lot of the time

yoo fr id just do a bake sale at that point, less child suffering and more yummy treats! (ill prob do that for my kids if i decide I have enough time to join the PTA)

Someone I follow said she used to that when her kids were in primary school (they’re high school and college now). She’d toss the catalogs and write a check directly to the school instead.

Yup, I did too. Still, the prizes did seem enticing

You are the person who benefited most from one of those prizes

awww you're the best teacher! Thank you for making those kids' day better!

I wish I had someone like you as a teacher! When I was in the 7th grade, we were "forced" to sell raffle tickets for a fundraiser. Our teacher told us that if we didn't sell a certain number of tickets, you'd have stay at school (in the principal's office, I think) while everyone else would get the "prize," which was to spend the day at the park with a big playground. No one my parents knew would be interested in something as lame as raffle tickets. So, I had to go door-to-door by myself, which, as a girl, was probably not safe in retrospect. I only managed to sell two raffle tickets after knocking on probably over 100 doors. Of course, I was in tears after having so many people slam doors in my face. My mom called the school and got in touch with the teacher to complain. The teacher lied and said we were never required to sell any raffle tickets, and it was optional. I still vividly remember all this, and I'm 38 now. Yes, it was that traumatic! When that teacher forced us to sell raffle tickets, I wonder if she asked herself if the students would remember it for the rest of their lives.

I was one of those kids too and I’m really thankful for teachers like you 😊

Agreed

That's great, also tell your students not to feel bad about not selling anything and that most likely the wrapping paper or items will end up in a Goodwill or the Goodwill version of some southern country (now either where do many of my articles come in mi local second hands)

Yeah

I remember that one very vaguely. I still have a duck from it, and it was the sock monkey.

i HATED jump rope for heart!! they would always visit my elementary school - and it was mandatory for everyone to participate in the jumproping. i remember one of the employees (?) giving me shit for not participating enough...i have asthma, i was wheezing.

i remember my elementary school having that too! they even had a thing where if you had a certain amount of ducks, you'd get a free duck that was covered in rhinestones.

Omg yess Jump Rope for Heart was so iconic for my elementary! I don’t recall what exactly about the ducks was so enticing 😂❤

thats horrible (not your teachers but the school for excluding children)

Agreed

😭i remember those stupid funfairs. there was a fundraiser last year where they made us sit quietly in a classroom the entire schoolday while it happened. weird

exactly! Poor kids never had anyone to buy things. While other kids got to ride in the limo and made sure everyone knew it

Yup I was one of those poor kids, and I wonder why I grew up pitying myself into depression lol

Same, I was never allowed to go door to door and could only try and sell to my family. There was too much competition in my neighbourhood anyway.

uhm, then your parents COULD have simply gotten you a toy, something better than any of the junk the other kids got.

@@scottdoesntmatter4409 OK? But they shouldn't have had to lol?

I remember selling chocolate when I was younger. That is not so bad, they’re usually very cheap and the customer gets it right away. I never had a problem with trying to sell all mine. I wouldn’t really consider it a pyramid scheme, but it can be annoying to do.

I actually just sold candy and snacks year round in elementary school to students and teachers. Not a fundraiser thing but I was making thousands per year in profit. I'm still a reseller online ironically lol.

The only thing you're wrong about is the shape. Less of a pyramid and more of a drinking straw. 😂

Oh man. I almost completely forgot about the Jump Rope for Heart thing. I had that at my school too. You've unlocked a new memory in me.

OMG I remember Jump rope for heart!!! They had the dogs as mascots I think, and my school would do it every year. My friends parents where both like, heart doctors or whatever you call it, so they'd buy all the crap and make big donations, and she'd always get called up and thanked for how much she participated, when it was all because her parents were loaded. I always felt bad complaining about it because she was really nice, but it always felt shitty cause I'd work so hard to try and get prizes, and get basically nothing in return, and she'd do nothing and get all the best prizes.

HOLY SHIT I had jump rope for heart too. It’s ridiculous how they wanted us to work so hard for DUCKS. LITTLE RUBBER DUCKS.

I did a think like this in 4th grade for the American heart association or something and I got like $100 USD worth of donations. Sadly, I have no other memory of these events.

yes this was the second thing i remembered after the catalogs! i was a forgetful kid and most of the time i'd ask my mom for $20 or something to get the prizes (a rubber ducky and a chance to compete in a jump rope competition) while kids who raised a lot got to pie the principal in the face along with bigger prizes

That just seems insensitive

Same at my school! I went to a title 1 school and a lot of the prizes were electronics

😂

what was the company ur school partnered with 😭 i have never heard of selling garbage bags for a school fundraiser

@@seaurchinted I could not remember the name of the company for the life of me, I just remember that they were colorful and that was one of the drawing points

My daughters class sold garbage bags in kindergarten. Plain white ones tho, no fancy colors. I remember she was all up in arms about it too, commenting on how weird it was but to be fair I bought some and they were actually good quality. Much better than the ones at the grocery store. 😂

They were better off just asking for donations or doing that cereal box top thing.

I remember having to sell Box Tops or magazines for one of those M&M radio things - I thought it was so cool until the battery ran low and it turned into a hunk of junk we had to throw out - years later while randomly searching M&Ms on Etsy I found one exactly like it and my face looked like Raven Baxter's.

I feel that. My dad is in a rather well off area, but my mom isn't. However, the houses are close together where my mom is, so that made it easier to walk. I also have dyscalculia and didn't even know what that was until seeing a RU-vid video when I was a teen. So any excuse to avoid math was welcome. We didn't really have presentations on them, and we literally were doing them to get out of debt and pay for the heat, so we had more motivation being a private school with 0 government funding. Thankfully, they usually chose reasonable ones, and this was before online shopping got popular, or else I think a lot of people would have just bought the same things on AliExpress or eBay. Bake sales were more fun. Nothing like making an assembly line of friends telling jokes while making pies or cookies.

I hope this doesn't sound rude, but I thought dyscalculia was just a cursed spelling of the word "dyslexia" and I mentally went "yeah that makes sense" without knowing it was a disorder about math 😭💀 But knowing what it is now, I can see how HELLISH it would be to try and do something with these kinds of fundraisers! :( Also I understand the pain of not being able to draw in your sketchbook during the assembly. Whenever they happened for me it was always a pain to focus.. And to just be there in general due to how loud the mic and speakers would be. It wasn't fun for Pre-Autism Diagnosis me.

​@@joylox your version sounds nicer.

Some school events were just terrible

That’s sick. I’m sorry you went through this

Same here. My mom didnt like the idea of me and my other siblings going around to random strangers trying to sell things that, in her view, were overpriced stuff you could get cheaper or at equal value at a Wal-mart or even a dollar store. So she refused her consent for us to sell, and bought just like 1 or 2 things, just enough for us to get the lowest tier prize which was something like a mechanical pencil that usually ends up getting misplaced after a few days, never to be seen again, or thrown in the junk drawer never to be used, just so we can say we participated and didn't feel left out.

My school did Jump Rope For Heart, too!

Omg you just unlocked so many memories for me I had completely forgot about that

my school had that too!

Yess my school did this too! I don’t know what happened, but for the one year I actually did fundraise, they forgot to send me my prize.

galaxy brain fundraising tactic right there

God dude same, those chocolate fundraisers were awful. My school didn’t allow us to give back the unsold chocolate though, we were forced to sell all of it. And if we didn’t, our parents had to cough up like $60 for the damn box. That chocolate was shit.

Yeah

Hey Drake! I’ve been watching you since I was IN elementary school!

my mom was not having any of that, she handed us the phone, her book of family phone numbers, and she sat down to watch us to make sure we didn't basically force or beg for sales. If she felt nice, she'd take the catalog to work but only had her coworkers look through and just let her know IF they wanted anything

I went to a school that was about $300/month, and we had to do those just to pay bills. There were a few wealthy business owners who would support us financially, but I remember one said he'd put up a billboard with no cost to us, as long as one of his kids got to be on it. Now there are enough kids that the tuition pays for all the bills, but I remember when there were less than 20 kids in a 3 grade classroom, and we did a lot of those catalogues. Flower bulbs, cookie dough, kitchen gear, pies... I do still use some of the kitchen stuff, including a lunch box I won, and a few nice plastic containers. But there really should be a better way than having kids ask people, or parents bring a book to work to make sure their kids have textbooks at school.

Same, I lived in a bad neighborhood so going door-to-door selling chocolates was a big no since I probably would have gotten robbed. Also didn't really have a supportive family that would help me out with sales or even give a fuck in any way. Luckily I think my teachers figured that out and they didn't really care.

Same😭

That sucks D:

well, I worked my butt off work what seemed like weeks to just get a stupid light up ring. I understand you might feel you missed out but really, you got saved.

for what its worth fundraising isn't the experience you think you missed out on

Dude, same ;-; It's just a rich people contest, it feels cruel them just getting up the hopes of the poor and socially awkward kids only to crush them once prizes are distributed. Whomever came up with that idea should be tarred and feathered imo.

yeah i had the same response, the prizes were junk and i was the weird loner kid anyway so i just threw the catalouge away and let the rich kids get scammed

lmaooo i was also a poor kid living in a scrappy apartment complex with my fellow poors and i wanted to go all entrepreneur with it and sell door to door so i too could be balling wearing all the little rubber ducks they gave you for selling cheap jewelry. luckily all the other kids were also poor but it's extremely funny to think of the adults in my life getting held at gunpoint at their restaurant job but still marketing like "but wait. are you interested in a AREA RUG my fine sir?"

Aw yes the jump for heart ducks

@@WHITDAWG bro don't even get me started on jump for heart. Kids in my school went NUTS over that!

Baby's first little MLM...IM DEADDDD LOL

Fr

Oof

Yeah

Yea

Lmao same, we were told to put the chocolate bars into ziploc bags so our backpacks wouldn’t smell like chocolate.

We sold trash bags. Crazy thing was it outsold any other fundraiser because we had those 500 bag rolls of thick plastic that will last a couple years.

We sold worlds finest chocolate, which is pretty good and is one dollar a bar, so it generally works out pretty well- Mostly because our band ain't funded by our school the the only way to make money is from these fundraisers.

For some reason my sister's school thought it was a good idea to sell mattresses for a fundraiser, like every year. Who needs a new mattress once a year!? Honestly it probably would've worked better if they sold chocolate.

We sold candy bars

I remember in highschool we sold candy bars, lollipops and these giant cookies. Honestly liked it a lot better Id end up buying my own stock lmao.

I remember making it to the sticky hand tier and that was it. Selling little beanie baby animals

I wish more school districts did what your kids' school district is doing. That seems smarter and a lot more effective (not to mention less stressful, expensive, and time consuming) than the stupid selling door to door method that so many schools use.

@@elizrebezilmadommdo1662 My dad hated these fundraisers too. He would bring it to work and try to sell, but of course he worked with people who also had kids who were doing the same fundraisers… But yeah, I love what my kids’ school does. Yeah, I’m the one donating, but I’d rather give them $50-100 a year instead of the time sink fundraising would be.

My grandma would look at the prizes, roll her eyes and see the weird fun day one, buy that many items which for my middle school was like 25 items to the 30 I think, and look at the big prize and just be like "I'll buy it for you. " one year it was a 3DS xL and the next year it was an iPad touch. She spoiled me and by the time it was my 8th grade year, she was annoyed and gave me money and was like "why am i still getting this magazine?" What a weird time for sure. I was lucky but, I felt bad for my friends who did feel excluded and when it came to the technology you'd win it'd always be the lowest GB too.

@@zyphex_Memer wdym cool 💀

ikr at my school every kid would hoard the posters and the pointy hand things

Those and book orders from them were exciting when you bought something and the anticipation of when the teacher has the items ready to hand out or when they place it into your mailbox

Book fairs were the best time of the year.

Yeah I LOVED the book fairs so much! I remember filling out the catalogs when I got home with mom (sometimes I would pick a few things then my brother and his catalog got a few things too) and bringing them in or going to the store itself with money to spend! I got most of the Can You See What I See books that way (none of the books past Once Upon A Time tho). I also remember my elementary school doing this Christmas bazaar and got a TON of cheap gifts that way (and a Nancy Drew game LMAO) which Im sure were just thrift store donations.