Booster Fundraiser Gifts and Spirit Ideas

The school year is fast approaching!  It is time to think about school activities and booster clubs again.  Repeating the same fundraiser year after year can become boring, so here are a few ideas to spice them up.  Spirit items make great rewards for students who participated in a fundraiser, or as rewards for donating.

Booster Fundraising Ideas

Take advantage of the last of the warm weather by holding a car wash.  While this is a common idea you can make it unique by encouraging your supporters to donate more by offering key tag or lanyard as incentives.

Take a page of out PBS’ book and hold a pledge drive.  Offer fan gear as an incentive.  The more a person pledges the better the reward will be.  For small pledges the reward could be a flag to wave at the next game.  For greater contributions offer seat cushions to make sitting on the hard bleachers a bit easier.

Put a new twist on back to school shopping.  Have students collect gently used items from community members to sell at a school wide garage sale.  Add in some fun competition by having the different classes keep track of how much money they earned.  Whichever class earned the most at the end of the sale will then be rewarded with prizes.  Set up a bake sale and concessions table as well for those shoppers who might get a bit hungry while they are there.

If you live in a state the offers a cash reward on recyclable products then you can hold an environmentally minded fundraiser.  Collect recyclable containers like glass or plastic bottles and aluminum cans.  Students can bring these items into school, collect them door-to-door, or have a container for collecting them at the next sporting event.  Once the collection is over simply take all the items to the local recycling facility and see how much you’ve earned.  If you made this drive a competition it would only make sense to reward the winners with a reusable water bottle.

Bingo is fun for all ages and makes for a truly fun fundraiser.  Charge a small amount for each bingo card and offer some fun prizes to the winners, and you will have fun for a good cause.  Also offer raffle tickets so that your supporters can win a great prize if their names are called.

Spirit Ideas for Booster Fundraiser Gifts

If you are promoting your team by selling spirit gear at sports events you can find anything you need in your team’s colors.  Noisemakers are a must have!  From megaphones to inflatable bam bams you can be sure that your team will be able to hear all their fans. When noise isn’t enough make sure to have movement in the stands as well.  No matter the sport, pom poms are always good to wave and support your team.  What would a game be without the classic “We’re number 1” foam spirit mitt?  You can even have students selling these in the stands so that no one has to go without spirit gear.

With these ideas and products there is no need to fear the upcoming school year.  You can make it the most spirited year yet!

Fire Up Tryouts with These Spirit Boosting Ideas

You build the best teams with the best performers, and the best tryout performances come from the kids having fun and playing hard without self-consciousness. Help the process along by encouraging team spirit and minimizing jitters from Day One of tryout practice. Here are three ways to do it.

1. Warm welcome. A distinctive sports welcome banner or sign should catch participants’ eyes upon arrival and is especially appreciated if the sport or activity is one that does not normally capture a lot of popular attention. Increase the “mileage” with personal greetings as players arrive if at all possible.

For a large school or group where many of those trying out don’t yet know each other, you might consider providing adhesive name tags the first day.

Start right away to notice and verbally reinforce the best demonstrations of positive attitude, hustle, support for others, and the sense of humor that uplifts and never denigrates. You can also chat about behaviors outside of practice, particularly nutrition, sleep and others concerned with players taking care of themselves.

2. Ice breakers. Often, tryout participants arrive with their own teams. There’s nothing wrong about coming in with friends, but if you let them, they’ll tend to stay in their personal comfort zones even though it’s important for everybody to feel comfortable with everybody.

Break up cliques systematically by never allowing participants to form their own groups for warm-ups and other small group activities. Instead, have them count off and keep mixing up the groups frequently.

Counting off is also handy for corporate-style team-building exercises, which we recommend for large and/or disparate tryout groups. These activities are usually a little silly on purpose, because nothing is as cohesive as shared laughter. Consider these team-builders to open a practice, or lengthen break times a little to include them. We particularly like the subgroups to do list-making such as “Five Things We Have in Common” (no body parts or clothing!) or “Five Shared Favorite Things” and then present their lists to the rest.

3. Something unexpected. Pull out a surprise every once in a while for a shared pleasurable experience. These can be things or activities.

When it comes to the first category, rest assured that many ideas – even for personalized spirit products — are quite easy on the budget. For example, you could replace the labels on a case of 20-ounce bottles of water with customized labels for less than $12, personalize static (“window cling”) car decals for as little as 25 cents, or outfit all but the largest tryout groups in temporary spirit tattoos for well under $10.

Another way to go is to have activities in your repertoire that you can pull out during “time for something completely different” moments or reserve for the ends of practices. We particularly like stress-lowering exercises such as deep muscle relaxation, yoga relaxation poses and breathing exercises — all skills that are helpful to spirit and state of mind, with the bonus of being completely portable.

Have a tryout spirit boost you don’t see here? Please share in comments!

How To Make Senior Night Unforgettable

The final year of high school is rich with memories. We’ve got some outstanding examples of how you can make Senior Sports Night memorable for the class of 2013.

Welcome the seniors and their families with Personalized Vertical Banners showing pictures of your school’s athletes in action.  Create a life size stand up from a picture of their freshman year or a giant 3-foot Big Head Cutout of their face for friends and family to wave when they are being honored.

You will also want to include a goodie bag filled with both fun and keepsake items such as personalized water bottles, key chains with the team photos. Personalized items create a memorable token for your seniors.  Let your imagination run wild with Do It Yourself treat bags that you can fill with either candy or healthy snacks. Or both! Make Senior Night for the class of 2013 one that they’ll be talking about in 2023 at their 10-year reunion!