Fundraise for Haiti
It has been almost a month now since the devastating 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti, one of the poorest nations in the world, on January 12. But the people of Haiti still need our help, and they will probably need help for a long time. If your school hasn’t started a fundraiser for Haiti, it definitely is not too late to start.
Our school took to action right away with our MHS Project Haiti, headed by our Student Council and Spanish Club. We started fundraising on Tuesday, January 26 and ended Friday, February 5.
We wanted to have an opener to this 10-day-long fundraiser, and we decided we would show a video during the beginning of our first hour classes. One of our Executive Officers created a short video that turned out fantastic. The video gave facts and pictures about the devastation in Haiti, and it also gave tips and information about our Project Haiti fundraiser. The video went over very well with the staff and the students, and it really inspired them to donate.
We decorated collection boxes for each individual classroom in our school and had one in our main office. This way, students will recognize them everywhere, and they won’t forget to go to just the office to donate. This also helps encourage students to donate any pocket-change they accumulate over the day. Teachers even made classroom goals to raise a certain amount of money. One teacher even offered to buy doughnuts for their class if they raised enough money...and they did!
We also extended our fundraiser into our community. We assigned each member of our Council to go to a business(es) and ask the manager if they would allow us to leave decorated collection boxes in their building. We had each student write a letter explaining the fundraiser to the manager.
To further the success of our fundraiser, we decided to collect donations at our varsity basketball games - in a unique way. We set up a TV playing the video we created and sat at a table with a decorated donation bucket. The video attracted many people to our table to donate money. In addition to this, at halftime, a Council member announced that the Student Council would match the money donated at the game us to $500! We collected donations for two varsity games - (Student Council did not match money the second game) – and made a huge portion of what we made total!
As an incentive to our fundraiser, schools in our area held a competition against one another to see who could raise the most money. Our local newspaper also got involved and wrote an article on our fundraiser. They will also be writing up a summary of the fundraiser and competition.
Also, our Principal agreed to being taped to the wall during lunch hour if we raised a set goal of money. We sold duct tape for $1/foot, in addition to having the boxes in classrooms.
I highly encourage your school to do some sort of fundraiser for Haiti. Like I said before, they will need help for a long time. Anything helps – regardless of whether it is a small fundraiser or large one. We raised a total of $2,705.22 to send with the American Red Cross in just 10 days with our small school and community size. I think one of the major factors with our success was the creativity of our fundraiser; we hadn’t done anything like this in a while.
In Leadership,
Ryan Thomas
Center 1 Representative
