After a week off to celebrate Thanksgiving with family and friends, we will be back to school on Monday for three weeks until our long awaited Winter Break. During those three weeks, our school is filled with engaging holiday activities, lessons and events. It is a time when our clubs and organizations also participate in charitable giving: Food Drives, Blanket Drives, and Caroling with Socks for the Elderly. These groups also raise money to donate to our local food bank and other charitable organizations. One way we raise money is to sell Candy Grams.
Candy Grams, or Holiday Grams, are specially delivered messages with a treat that are sold around holidays or special events. The treat can be candy, a pencil, a bookmark or other trinket you attach to the gram. The Turkey Grams below were sold the week before Thanksgiving break and delivered on that Friday afternoon before dismissal.
You can easily hold a Candy Gram sale at your school to raise money using the following steps:
1. Schedule the Candy Gram fund-raiser close to a major holiday or event.
2. Choose a simple, inexpensive candy or treat that you can purchase in bulk from Costco, Sam's, Dollar Tree or Oriental Trading: Blow Pops, Tootsie Pops, Candy Canes, Pencils, Bookmarks, Plush Toys, etc. We try to get a business or parent to donate these items so we don't have to take the cost out of our profit.
3. Print your grams on white card stock in color, or print in black and white on colored card stock. The card stock helps support the weight of the candy when you attach it.
4. Advertise by hanging flyers, announcing in the morning announcements, posting on the school website, and sending home information in parent newsletters.
5. Sell the grams before or after school the week of the sale. You can sell them for 50 cents or $1 each. Choose an amount you think would work well in your school community. You can even offer class sets for teachers to buy for their students at 50% off the regular price.
6. Sell them at a table that will get a lot of parent and student traffic in the morning and afternoon. Have several pens on hand for customers to fill out their own cards, or you can fill them out for kinder and 1st grade students. Also have a list of teachers with their room numbers in case you need to refer to it.
7. After selling the gram and attaching the candy, put it in a large gallon size zip lock, or big brown envelope labeled with the teacher's name or room number.
8. On the day of delivery, deliver the bag to the teacher's classroom at a convenient time so he/she can hand them out to the students.
If you would like to try selling candy grams at your school, I have a free gift for you. Click on the picture below for a FREE download of a Holiday Gram with the cute Christmas mouse:
If you are interested in the complete product with additional holiday grams to choose from, check out the Candy Grams product in my TPT store. There are 10 different grams in the complete product and it comes with additional forms and flyers. Click the picture below for more information:
What an adorable freebie - thank you for sharing!
ReplyDeleteGreat idea for fundraising.
ReplyDeleteWonderful idea! Thanks and happy holidays! -Betsy (Spark Creativity)
ReplyDeleteOh my goodness. I know so many students who would LOVE this, and I never thought of it before. Excellent idea!! Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteSuch a cute idea!!!
ReplyDeleteI need to edit the poster for Halloween. I want to make it Christmas theme but I can't get rid of the pumpkin. Can you help?
ReplyDelete