My kids came home one day with a couple of those fundraising sheets we used to get back when I was still in school myself, which had me rolling my eyes before I could have a proper read at what turned out to be a rather exciting prospect. The idea was to raise funds for a brand new cricket pitch to be installed in one of the school yards and personally, I’m all for any such developments which contribute towards keeping the kids off the streets and away from trouble.
Once I had a proper read I realised that it’s not the typical donation-solicitation type fundraiser like the ones we used to be subjected to back in my day. This is more of an entrepreneurial venture in which the school will subsidise any raw materials which they deem to be part of a good idea for anything which would essentially sell at a profit, the profits of which would go towards the cricket pitch. So there would be no going house to house and knocking on neighbours’ doors to beg for a donation. Of course, fundraisers for schools are supposed to have some fun element in them. I am not a fan of simply asking a couple kids to hold donation boxes and walk to every house in the neighbourhood asking for money. Hosting a fun event, an outdoor sports day, or something that involves everyone to participate while also fulfilling the cause of the event is more like it!
We immediately got to work with the kids and decided to put our brand new waffle maker to good use, bought from http://www.expondo.co.uk/waffle-maker and dare I say, none of us in the entire household need an excuse to use it. The only thing is that I’m often the one who’s stuck with having to clean it up after everyone has enjoyed their waffles, which to be honest isn’t that much of a task at all. It’s nowhere near the task it was cleaning up after making some waffles back in the days when I used to do it with my mother and grandmother, but this would be the first time we’d actually be using it to make some waffles we were going to sell.
The monthly open-air market which happens every last Saturday of the month made for the perfect setting for us to sell the waffles and we totally killed it, as attested to by the fact that we had to call home and bother the hubby to take some time away from watching football on the telly and make a few more waffles for the temporarily disappointed queue that had formed at our stall.
Well, we had a taste of the waffles ourselves as well, so I could totally understand why they were so popular, selling out within the first hour-and-a-half of the market’s opening.
We weren’t the only family selling waffles at the market however, but it was all in the spirit of raising funds which would go to the same school, so any little bit of competition which ensued was all in good spirit. If it was a competition, we totally crushed our competitors and in all honesty, I really think I can attribute the popularity of our waffles to just how “professional” they looked. I would perhaps have had a hard time believing they were homemade myself if I wasn’t in on the “insider information” pertaining to our secret weapon, but yeah, that’s how waffles helped us totally kill the school fundraiser.
