Our elementary school's mascot is the Owl and every year we hold our one and only fundraising event: "Hoot, Scoot & Boogie." It is a carnival event where the kids can play games (purchasing tickets ahead of time) to raise money for the PTA. This year the girls enjoyed dunking their teachers in dunk tanks, winning cakes via the cakewalk (like musical chairs), and they even won a 2-litre bottle of root beer at the ring toss. Best of all, though, is that they each got some time to wander around with friends and no parents. These days, it seems, parents become un-cool much sooner than generations past.
The second part of Hoot, Scoot, and Boogie is the Silent Auction. This year I served as co-chair on the Silent Auction committee on the PTA board. We spent many hours, weeks, and months planning and working on this event. It brings in tens of thousands of dollars for the school each year and I was determined to set a new record.
Our big day was last Friday. We had a great team working on gathering all the donations, compiling thank-you's, and setting up/taking down on the day of. Here's a view of our fine work:
Each class also provided a class project to be auctioned - something made by the children in the class and put together by a parent volunteer. I headed up the class project for Emily's first grade class. Their auction basket theme was "Ice Cream Party" and featured a Cuisinart ice cream maker, matching sundae bowls, toppings, mixes, etc. So I let the kids trace ice cream cones on fabric remnants and we appliqued them onto cotton squares. They fingerpainted the red cherries on top (using their thumb prints) and then I pieced the fabric together into a quilt. The PTA provides $25 'starter funds' to each project. Because I used a lot of scrap fabric from my personal stash, and some 50% off coupons for batting and backing fabrics, I only had to spend $1 of my own money. The quilt sold for $60 at auction. Yay!
