Lydia’s class–and every other junior high class in the country, I’m sure–is in the midst of a drive to raise money for the class trip they’ll be taking when they complete ninth grade, and it’s going less than swimmingly, at least for our girl.
She and her classmates are selling plastic freezer bags, each student charged with ten packs of 150 bags to unload for 60 crowns (eight bucks, give or take) a pack. They’re pretty spendy — not entirely outside the realm of reason considering that they’re thick, good quality bags, but still more than most people are willing to part with when it comes to kids making door-to-door sales. Especially when there are a half-dozen other kids coming hot on their heels trying to hawk their socks or salami or butter cookies for equally outrageous sums.
There’s less than a week left until all the bags must be sold (apparently returning any unsold is not an option), and Lydia still has half of her stock left. We bought two packs, her grandparents bought two packs, and I twisted a friend’s arm until she took a pack off our hands, but that still leaves five to sell.
Back in the good old days, when I had to sell candy bars to help finance the purchase of new band uniforms, my mom would take a box to work with her and strong-arm her co-workers into supporting the arts. For the first time, I find myself wishing that Olof worked at an office instead of from home, so he could take these accursed bags and get rid of them there. Though, at 60 crowns a pop, that might not work so well. At least the candy bars were only a dollar — more than they were worth, to be sure, but a small enough sum as to be almost negligible.
The most likely outcome, I’m afraid, is that we will buy the remaining bags from her, which will give us a total of just over one thousand bags. I suppose I’d better get busy freezing things, then … in just six short years Tage will surely come knocking with a new supply and I need to get these used up before then.
This system does nothing for kid’s confidence. I mean, even if you try your best, you still might not sell all that you’re supposed to – sure it’s a life lesson. But also it’s a life lesson that if you have successful parents, hey, they can afford for you to go on the trip. Whereas if you’re not in such a good situation, and you miss things like this because your parents can’t afford it, you might start thinking that you should do your best in school so the same thing won’t happen in your future.
Also, I heard that it was also to do with how many people had made the quota. So even if you did your bit, there might be some kids who weren’t interested in the particular trip, didn’t bother to sell anything, and then there’s not enough kids for the trip. Is this true? I just don’t get it. We don’t have this selling technique in England.
I will take the remaining bags and can send you the money via paypal. Phyllis is always looking for bags to put the bugs that she picks off her brugmansias into.
Whew! Glad Tony stepped up. For a minute there I thought I was going to have to (I mean I thought Si was going to have to…lol).
It does seem like a rather stupid system. People want to be nice to sweet kids knocking on their doors…but silly over-paying for something you might not even want is just stupid. If I want to donate money, I’d prefer donating money and skipping the middle man, i.e. the company selling those bags. Something small seems better. Lots of people being a little nice beats hardly anyone being very nice. I suspect most of those bags will end up being bought by parents anyway.
Candy lottery used to do the trick when I was that age. Each ticket cost only 1sek/$.14 (I guess it’d be double that now) and you could get lucky and win a chocolate bar! The most lucrative way we raised the money needed though was selling home-made cinnamon buns. Everyone in class (in pairs) had to spend one (half) Saturday on the town square selling home made bread and cinnamon buns. One parent helped baking, another parent helped supervise. No one was made to feel bad and the sales was always a success because:
a. The price was reasonable (But still with a reasonable profit)
b. Everyone loves “home made”.
c. Everyone loves being nice to sweet kids working towards their class trip and at the same time getting home made bread and cinnamon buns at a reasonable price.
Awww, thanks, Tony! You’re a champ! (And Debi thanks you, too! ;))
Rachael, I’m not sure there’s a quota system for the trips … the way I understand it is that all of the kids get to go, regardless of what they do or don’t sell (they do have to participate in other ways, such as putting on school dances and working at them, and the parents make sizeable contributions as well).
Still, I agree entirely with Jacob that this selling of bags and the like is a silly system that could be improved on in many, many ways. I think I’ll suggest the bake sale idea for next time!
Yeah, that’d be much better, people always like cakes/cookies. Also, it’s not something people look at and say ‘ah, well we’ve already got some of those’ 🙂