PTA and Student Groups Fundraise at Spring PTC

At the Spring Parent Teacher Conferences that occurred Thursday, March 27th and Friday, March 28th, BSGE took advantage of the mass amount of parents coming in and decided to make some money. The Lady Sting Softball team, PTA and Junior Council were all selling items for parents and students to purchase in support of the school.

Lady Sting Softball team held a bake sale on both days with baked goods like cupcakes, cookies, brownies and more. These sweet treats kept parents, students and teachers awake through the large list of meetings for three hours. Younger siblings of students who were dragged to the conferences were also in favor of these treats. In the end, the softball team made around $200, according to Lady Sting player Rena Kitagawa’ 17.

The PTA, led by parent coordinator Margaret Pasach, held three different raffle competitions. Each raffle pack had a monetary value of over $100 and included school supplies like planners, journals, notebook, pens and more. BSGE students from a variety of grades volunteered for Community & Service hours to help sell these raffle tickets.

As for Junior Council, the student organization made up of BSGE Juniors, was selling candy pieces that came with raffle tickets. These raffle tickets could go to any of the three raffle prizes. Parents would write down their child’s name and grade on the back of the ticket, and enter to win one of the many prizes. Each raffle ticket was $1 and $5 for six tickets. Surprisingly, parents were not the only ones entering the raffle. Students, teachers and other BSGE staff members entered the raffle competition.

The first raffle basket, “The Scholar” came with a 4 week digital subscription to the New York Times, an SAT Grammar Workbook and the novel “Paper Town” by popular author John Green. Tristan McKenzie’ 17 from the 9th grader won this raffle basket.

The second raffle basket, “The Fun Guy”, included the 2014 Guinness World Book of Records, two AMC Movie Theater Tickets and 2 foam footballs. This prize went to Junior Derek Chu’ 15 who actually had no knowledge of his mother entering the raffle.

The last raffle basket was the most popular one, for it had the most appealing prizes. The “Grand Prize” included a Tempur-Pedic Cooling Pillow, a Godiva Chocolate set and two Regal Cinemas movie tickets. Seventh grader Jade was the lucky winner.

Juniors also sold small cups of coffee for 50 cents to parents on Thursday night. The combination of the coffee and candy/raffle sales, Junior Council made around $250 for the two nights.

Junior Council member Mariam Nersisyan’ 15 commented on the amount made with slight disappointment but remaining optimism.

“$250 can seem like a small amount for two nights, but if you think about how it affects our grade in the end, it was a great accomplishment.” She continued, “Every penny counts when raising money for things like prom, graduation, etc. It’s important to look at the bright side of things.”

This was the second fundraising event Junior Council had done that week, with an all-day bake sale raising around $400 hosted on Wednesday.

Overall, sales were slower at the Spring Parent Teacher Conferences due to the decrease in attendance. Usually parents flock to the Fall Parent Teacher Conferences to meet all the teachers and get a feel for what the classes are like. After the first meeting, most parents do not find a reason to come back for the Spring conferences, thus affecting sales of student organizations trying to fundraise.

For student organizations wanting to raise money in the future, nab the parents’ wallets at the Autumn Conferences rather than Spring!