eBay Is On The LIST.

The wee ones' preschool does a fundraiser every year in conjunction with Cinco de Mayo. Because we're a small school with few parent volunteers, and the kids attending are preschoolers, many of which have special needs, our event is during school hours. We don't do the fancy galas that the other schools in our district do but rather have events during the day for the am and pm classes.

We invite parents in to see the events, which includes student performances and a dance troupe from the high school. During this, we have raffles and a silent auction.

The raffles have always gone over well -- including by people not connected to the school, which rocks. The silent auction garnered some negative feedback last year. Because some parents aren't able to attend at all and others have kids only in the am classes, many parents didn't feel it was fair because they wouldn't be there at the end of the auction. Although we offered last year to proxy bids for people if they told us their max bid, not many people took us up on this.

This year, we tried to get a little creative and move into the digital age. Some of us thought it would be great if we could list our silent auction items online for people to bid on -- no arguments of it not being fair because they weren't there and there's also the possibility of opening it to a wider audience for things like the three games of Cubs tickets we have.

In doing research for this, I found two companies doing online auctions that sounded like they might work. cMarket specializes in nonprofit fundraising with online auctions. They had all sorts of neat ways to do things, so I contacted them. Unfortunately, they're not for our school. They have a $595 auction setup fee, in addition to taking a pretty hefty portion of the auction's winning bid. I ruled them out pretty quickly.

eBay was the other possibility, as they have a nonprofit bit setup, as well. You have to vet your organization through Mission Fish and then it sounds like you can potentially list your item and get the listing fees back so long as the proceeds of the auction are for the nonprofit. Totally cool.

Of course (being the non-eBay person that I am), I had a ton of questions. I wanted to know things from: can we group our items together so people can find them easily to how long we can have the auction run since the presale brochure goes out well in advance of the fundraiser itself to how the fees truly work. I couldn't find any of these answers to my satisfaction online, so I sent off an email listing my seven questions very clearly to eBay.

I was promised a response within 48-72 hours. I was fine with that.

I waited 48 hours. Nothing. I waited 72. I was annoyed, but I wrote it off as bad customer service and a sign that I really shouldn't count on this working. And yes, we found an alternate solution that I think will work well -- at least for this year -- late last week.

A full week after I sent my email, I received a response from eBay. I was irritated that it wasn't even close to their 72 hour promise, but I was intrigued to see what it would have to say in the hopes that I could use it for next year or at least pass the info along to other PTOs in our district.

Below is the email verbatim.

Dear Michelle,

Thank you for writing eBay in regard to

We are committed to making your eBay experiences pleasant and
fulfilling.

Sincerely,
Sid P.

eBay Customer Support
_____________________________________________

Yeah. I have to say that I believe I will never be using eBay for anything. Ever. How exactly does that come even close to being helpful? Seriously?

And I had such high hopes for the potential of having an online auction. Nope, it's a raffle ($1 per ticket) for our regular items and classroom baskets and a super raffle ($5 per ticket) for our more unique items. Here's hoping that it works out well. We got some really great donations this year, but I know the economy is rotten.

Regardless, we will not be using eBay this year. Or next. Boo.

Mental Note: Find Childcare

Things have been pretty busy around here lately.

I usually work three days a week, but has anyone seen the economy lately? Pretty much anyone who's left with a job is working more and more hours. I worked six hours on my day off on Friday. And eleven hours on Monday. And so it goes.

Add the PTO president to the list. I have my usual duties -- and at a special needs preschool, we have our own challenges. Parents are usually only there for two years and in some cases less, before they move on to elementary school. Plus, they're new to the school system, dealing with special needs kids and frequently have even younger siblings at home. Our volunteer base is small, but with 300 kids, our needs are large.

I'm in the midst of planning our Cinco de Mayo event where we bring in Folkloric dancers, students perform songs and dances, we sell traditional foods, and we hold a silent auction and raffle for the parents and community. Gaining donations is the biggest piece of it, as without cool prizes, no one puts in raffle tickets! This year is a bigger challenge than ever because of the economy, but I'm really impressed with and appreciative of some people I know not connected with our school at all who are small businesspeople who have donated some items to us. I'm hoping this makes up the difference for us (and hey -- if you have an Etsy shop and have something you could donate to help our preschool, let me know!).

And then there are the other things I toss in those spare moments, the making it to the chiropractor twice a week, choir practice twice a week, trying to run three times a week, cooking dinner for the family, and so forth.

This isn't at all to say that I'm more busy than anyone else of course, but I'm trying to justify my mental lapses. So ummm make me feel better, here.

Yesterday afternoon, I had a Cinco de Mayo meeting to talk through the donations we've collected and need to collect, as well as to figure out how much food we think we'll sell on the day of the event.

My dad has been watching Little Miss while I'm at those meetings so she can nap. Because she needs to nap. When I called yesterday morning to confirm that my dad was getting her off the bus, he had no idea what I was talking about. And had other plans. As did my mom. As did the other SAHMs in my babysitting co-op. Whoops.

So I brought her with me.

And she brought Snowy. And we spent the meeting with her tossing the teddy bear up in the air and screeching with laughter. And picking up the tambourines that had somehow been left in the room and banging them on desks. And running up to me with castanets and showing me how they can be earrings. And telling me to stand up when she clicked them together. And throwing the teddy bear at me. And knocking over my water bottle.

This meeting should have lasted no more than forty-five minutes to an hour. It was an hour and a half because of the three year old who so desperately needed a nap. I did bring her blankets with her hoping that she would lay down on a couch and rest. Yeah. I know better now.

March 31 is already on my dad's calendar. And I think I need to talk to the school about making sure she's in morning preschool again next year!

***************************

Oh. You came here to find out who won the Spring Fling contest?

Well, as I promised I put all the entries into a spreadsheet -- because I'm anal that way. I was impressed. I only had two people not follow the instructions and have their entries forfeited (yeah, I'm a stickler for the rules; what can I say?). Ninety-seven entries total, and:

True Random Number Generator

Min:
Max:
Result:
86

Ok, if someone can tell me how to make it all pretty in my post like I see elsewhere, please let me know. this was the best I could do!

#86 in my list was MEGAN from INfertile Myrtle! She's a new follower, and I hope she (and the rest of you) stick around. Thanks for playing!

A Pocket Full of Money!

Today was Mister Man’s preschool’s silent auction and raffle. Of course, he’s currently in Florida, so he wasn’t there to enjoy the Cinco de Mayo festival, but it was pretty cool.

There were two parties during the day, and because I had no children to mind, I was able to be there from 8:30 am until 6pm – set up to every last thing put away – with no distractions. Both the morning and afternoon preschool classes really seemed to enjoy the parties, as did the parents who attended.

A couple classes sang and did dances during each party, which was so adorable. There were a couple of Hispanic boys who really got the dancing, even though they were only 4 or 5. They had their hands in the right places, their feet were in step, and they had great rhythm. Plus, they looked great in their cowboy boots and hats. Many of the girls were similarly attired in traditional Mexican garb, but none of the girls were half as good as two boys in particular.

There were also traditional dancers from the high school who came and danced for the students for about a half hour for each party, including costume changes. Now they were impressive. I have a feeling that I would have weighed less in high school had that been my hobby – those dances are fast and aerobic!

But best of all was the support for the fundraiser portion. When this was done two years ago (the last time it was done), I’ve been told it raised around $1,700 for the PTO. That’s good for us for a fundraiser, as our annual budget is well under $10,000. While we haven’t totaled up all the items, it appears as though we’ve raised in the neighborhood of $5,000 today! Not that anyone I know reads this, but in their hearts, they know that I am so very thankful to them for participating.

It was a lot of work to approach the local businesses and collect all the donations, not to mention getting the word out, putting together the displays, etc, but bringing in this much money – which will allow us to purchase so many things for the school and its students from more listening centers to mini-trampolines the therapists have requested to art supplies and more, not to mention helping the low income students attend field trips – is well worth the effort.

For anyone who lives in or near Chicago (or who has any of these chains nearby), please patronize them and thank them for supporting the Early Learning Center for special needs and at risk 3-5 year olds:

Sandy Ruff Photography
WineStyles
Cartoon Cuts
Barrington Fire Department
Barrington Park District
Catlow Theater
Color Me Mine
Dunkin' Donuts
Panera
Starbucks
The Canteen
Dinner by Design
Pizza Hut
Manic Mommy
Ace Hardware
Pet-A-Coat Junction
My Sister’s Obsession
Julie Buxbaum (author of The Opposite of Love)
Keson Industries
Schaumburg Flyers
Language Stars
Brunswick Zone
Dolphin Swim Club
Amazing Gracies
Barrington Chocolate and Ice Cream Shoppe
Portrait Innovations
Young Tootsies
Barrington Gyros
Crickets
Elevation Salon
Great Clips
Curves
Pump It Up
Village Pizza
Body Soulutions
Domino's Pizza
Aristica Wave Salon de Belleza
G. Whiz!
Jewel
Mia Francesca's
Evamarie Pilipuf
Learning Express
Go Roma!
Chuck E. Cheese
Cary Gymnastics
Wool Street
Stairway Studio
Chessie's Restaurant
Clarke's Deli and Bakery
Sanctuary Salon & Spa
Good Shepherd Health & Fitness
La Mesa

And next year, we hope it will only be better. After all, I’ll be PTO president then! As for now? I’m now working on our last fundraiser of the year. We’re selling gift cards to businesses at face value. The school earns a portion of every gift card purchased. Who doesn’t need or use gift cards, especially at the end of the school year when there are graduations, teacher gifts, etc? Hey – if any of the three of you reading are interested, let me know and I’ll get an order form to you (yeah, I see that happening!).