River Bluff High School DECA School Fundraising Group
One of our favorite things at Fun Pasta Fundraising is helping groups to achieve their fundraising goals. We’ve learned with every group, there is a story behind the fundraiser. It’s the story and the people that we love. It keeps us using our noodles to continuously raise the Fundraising bar to improve our fundraising products and the process. The River Bluff High School DECA club ran a very successful first time fundraiser.For this month’s featured school fundraising group, we interviewed group leader, Bryson Williams.
Tell us about your group? How many kids? How long have you been together?
Our group is the DECA (Distributive Education Clubs of America) program. It’s a sales and marketing club. This is our first year as a club because we are a brand new school. Right now we have around 80 members in the program. The High School is 9th – 12th grades and currently has about 1500 students.
What are their goals for the year? How long have you worked with Fun Pasta Fundraising?
We set the goal at having about $8000 in sales. This was my first time working this fundraiser. Our department head has used you before with another High School in the past and wanted to work with you again.
What were you raising funds for? What was your fundraising goal?
We required all of our members to participate in the fundraiser because we have a lot of start up costs this year. We also asked our computer and business technology programs to participate. We were raising funds for travel expenses and supplies. We needed to purchase blazers for the kids and we have costs associated with traveling to and from competitions. It costs $42 to be a member of DECA. As an incentive, we offered DECA membership to first time members for free if they sold 2 dozen bags.
How did you get the word out and kickoff your fundraiser?
We scheduled our kickoff on our DECA day. We planned the fundraiser to start at the beginning of Football season. Then we met with the kids and showed them a video of all the cool things we do as a group. I introduced the fundraising product to them. Then I taught them some sales techniques.
We used the slogan, “There’s a pasta for that.” With football season starting we asked the kids to appeal to the tailgating crowd because you have so many collegiate pastas. What’s cooler than going to a USC game and having USC gamecock’s pasta salad for tailgating?
Not a football fan, not to worry. Love horses? “There’s a pasta for that.” What if they don’t eat pasta? We have something for that as well. Divine Meringues. Watching your diet? Try the gluten free tagliolini.
We taught our sellers that there’s no reason people can’t buy, because at Fun Pasta Fundraising, there’s a pasta for everybody. I used the fundraiser as a teachable moment with the kids since sales and marketing is our focus. I asked them, how many of you have family in other states. Well we have a site for that. We made it fun and pitched it to the kids. By teaching them how to overcome a consumer’s buying barrier we were able to maximize our sales.
What was the greatest challenge you faced as a school fundraising group leader? How did you overcome it?
Honestly the only challenge we had was sorting the pasta and getting it into the correct bags. This was my first year and we got some of the wrong stuff and put it into the wrong bags etc. I think I learned a lot from the process. Next time I will be more organized.
What group event(s) on your calendar are you most excited about in the coming months?
We’ve got our International DECA competition in Georgia on May 1st.
Is there something our readers would be surprised to know about your group?
We are a first year school and had one of the largest first year DECA programs. We exceeded our sales goal and sold over $9000 for the fundraiser.
Tell us why you are such a passionate supporter of you group and of this fundraiser?
This was my first year being fully involved as a DECA program advisor. I really enjoy working with the kids because DECA is outside the classroom. The kids get to see you and know you on a different level. They see you more as a mentor, a guide, teaching what you love.
Of all the products in our catalog, which did your group sell the most? What were they the most excited about?
The collegiate pastas were the biggest seller. The Divine Meringues were also really popular.
If you could tell another leader to do one thing to help their fundraising efforts, what would it be?
Teach the kids how to sell. If they don’t know how to sell then they won’t. Make sure they understand how they will benefit from the fundraiser to motivate them to sell.
How does one interview for a fundraising leader position?
Well I didn’t interview… I was volunteered by my Department Head.
Special thanks to Bryson and to the River Bluff High School DECA for the images. For more information about your next Fundraiser, click here. If your school fundraising group would like to be featured on our blog, leave me a comment. I’d love to hear from you.
