It’s Sports Day season at Primary Schools everywhere! These are such a fun day for the children, parents and younger siblings – A chance to cheer your child on, watch their success and resilience grow, and also have a natter with the other mums and dads watching. Throw in a bit of sunshine and the mood is a winner!
Does your school PTA get involved in Sports Day? Not all do, but they are such a great opportunity to raise extra funds for your school and engage with the school community – Especially if the sun is shining and everyone’s feeling energised and happy!
Here are some simple ways you could link your PTA fundraising with your school sports day.
Breakfast
Sports Day can be an early and hectic start for mums and dads! Rushing to school, making sure the kids have all of their PE kit, water bottles, packed lunch for school field picnics… the list goes on. Then there’s usually a bit of waiting around while the children go to registration.
So rather than having parents loitering around waiting for the games to being, offer a simple breakfast to the mums and dads on the early stretch of sports day (usually Key Stage 1). Bacon baps, croissants, teas and coffees are pretty simple to offer and bound to be gobbled up for a few pennies in the pot. Easy money.
Lunch
Most schools have a picnic on the school field for the children to spend with their parents and friends. A great addition to this could be a BBQ – There’s always one who will forget they were supposed to bring a packed lunch that day! And really, who can resist the smell of barbecue?
Stalls
If you’ve attended a school sports day, you’ll know that there is a lot of waiting around between the races your child is involved in. So why not have a few stalls near the viewing area where parents can spend some cash between races. Make sure these are well advertised before the day itself so people know to bring cash! Popular choices:
- Refreshments – Water, juice, tea, coffee, biscuits
- Cake – A bit of refuelling for after the picnic, and a pick-me-up for the parents!
- Fruit – Locally grown fruit like punnets of strawberries; maybe even with some cream! Slices of water melon would also be great, especially on a warm day.
- Second Hand Uniform – Always handy, and at the end of term, parents would probably be tempted to stock up on supplies ready for after the Summer
Donation Points
Sports Days give such a wonderful community feel and bring everyone together with such a sense of pride for their children and school as a whole. Parents are bound to feel generous, so it’s a great idea to have some places where they could easily donate some money to the school pot. Even better than charity boxes or buckets, you could utilise cashless donation technology so that even the parents who haven’t brought cash can just tap to donate! So simple, and if you set the minimum amount of a few pounds, you’re bound to boost your fundraising.
It might take a bit of balancing, but if you schedule volunteers in for half an hour slots on the stalls, then parents still get to see their child in their races, and your PTA still gets the help it needs. Well worth the effort for a relatively easy few hundred pounds raised!