Raising Funds for a Childrens' Playground
We have an old playground in the village and actually to play over there for kids is dangerous as the ground is not maintained well and the slide had a puddle at one end, which made it completely unusable, the seesaw made a creaking noise when kids used it, and there was only one swing seat left there so kids used to fight for the same.
All us villagers decided to renovate or build a new shiny and safe playground, this was the agenda of one of our meetings, we decided that something needed to be done, but this project would could cost a lot of money and you cannot afford to cut cost on safety.
To work for this good cause we decided we needed to raise around $15,000. We wanted to get the playground up and running safely. We decided to raise money with some activities which were suggested during the early meetings (we used to meet every week and discuss the project).
We decided to use the children to help raise the funds and we planned events and competitions among kids like: Drawing, Crafts, Running race, vegetable carving, face painting, sporting events, swimming and other interesting fundraising events!
We planned all the activities well in advance and a team of people got together and met for discussion, then we implemented according to the plan we had discussed. Kids started coming to the event and enrolled themselves by paying $1 as an entry. We started off with a drawing competition for younger kids, ran a painting competition for older children, talent show and sporting event with supervision of teachers.
We also planned for parent/teacher races where the kids could place bets on who they think would win; all the profits went to the playground!
Face painting and sports were the most successful events, and though theyu did not earm much money every little does help! While planning games for the kids we did a bake sale which helped us to raise some more money. We also put on other events for children at the bake sale to make sure they were entertained!
During the course of a year or so we raised money by planning different events; meanwhile we asked the manufacturer out to fit the playground for us. We were planning to use the money on a playground, within a couple of weeks our ground and the kids were ready to have fun and play. The playground looked beautiful with the new setup (and the happy kids!)
Fundraising can be a great way to do something for your community. A new playground was the first task of many that we did; now planning these events and raising money has become a habit for our community and we fundraise all year round and simply save the money and use it for the community.
