Working Moms

Daycare asking for donations and fundraisers?

A few weeks ago the teachers at daycare posted a wishlist-- now I can see if this is your last baby and maybe you no longer have use for an exersaucer you would donate that, but there was stuff like batteries, crockpot, etc?

Then I got a note saying the Preschool was selling Entertainment books as a fundraiser?

Is this typical?  I can understand these requests from public schools, but we pay a lot of money for DD to be there.  And the daycare is for-profit?  Just wondering what your experience is?

Re: Daycare asking for donations and fundraisers?

  • My sister's daycare does fundraisers All.the.time! She is forever helping with 'flower day' or 'art day'. The crazy thing is she has Fridays off to help offset dc costs but if she uses a Friday to help with that stuff she has to pay to have nephew in dc that day. It drives me batty. She and BIL are also on the board and give a lot of time in the evenings to daycare. No reduced rates, no free day when they are there helping. (It's a NP church daycare).

    Ours is a NP church dc and I've never been asked to help or give extra. They did a photo thing right before DS started where you could buy prints of your child from the week's events for $1. It was going toward new playground equipment. That was it.

  • Our day care does fund raisers, but it is a non profit so I don't mind so much.  It might bother me if it was a for profit center. 
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  • My DC does this also- they are also a non-profit agency, so I expect as much.  This is how they keep their rates lower!
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  • My daycare does this, usually under the guise of the "Parents Association," so they can get away with it (this is clearly a for-profit center).  Makes me batty and I usually just don't participate.  I have never had any negative consequence of doing so, I just don't make an issue of it.  Makes me even more batty that there are mandatory dues for the Parents Association.  To their credit they do donate books and equipment to classrooms, but it also makes me question why none of this has eased the yearly 7% increase in tuition.

    DD's old daycare used to have mandatory fundraising events.  As in, you had to sell subs, and if you didn't, you had to pay the equivalent of a certain amount of subs.  I had huge issues with this as well.  To me, fundraising is meant to be for charitable purposes, not because you didn't budget enough to buy pencils with the tuition money I am already paying.

  • I posted this same thing a few months ago.  DD's daycare, also a for-profit center, had fundraisers before where they asked the parents to sell books, chocolates, etc.  The fundraiser wasn't well communicated and the stuff was junk so we just ignored it.

    Then, they had a fundraiser to buy new playground equipment (they just opened a new facility and don't have any equipment).  They asked each family to donate an item worth $50 for raffle prizes, buy or sell raffle tickets, and buy tickets to attend a bar-b-que.  Luckily we were out of town the weekend of the BBQ so we didn't participate.  DD is still in the infant center, and we're planning to move soon, so she'd never even get to play on the equipment.

     Here's the real kicker: I was talking to the director last week and she said they don't even know when they're going to get the playground equipment now!  It was supposed to be done this month, but now the building is doing construction on the front entrance, next to where the daycare is located, so they can't build the playground because of the construction - which is scheduled to last till October!  If I had contributed, I would be so mad! 

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  • Mine is a church daycare. They do one fundraising event per year - usually a casino night or a dinner or something with a silent auction type thing. Nothing that we're expected to sell junk for. It was for new playground equipment. The playground equipment was just installed a couple months ago, and I haven't heard anything about a fundraiser this year so maybe they're taking a break.

    They also ask for presents for the classrooms at Christmas. I think we gave a babydoll last year - nothing big. We wrap the present and the kids get to open the present they brought and are very excited by it and of course it's for their classroom so they'll be playing with it too.  But the school did have stuff like a digital camera on the list.

    I would assume the crockpot is for heating bottles, so it's not totally off the wall. Plus people sell them at garage sales all the time, so it's not like they're that expensive.

    - Jena
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