Tell me about your best fundraisers please :)

[OFSTEDoutstanding]

Hi I was wondering if any of you have had a really successful but unusual fundraiser for your Pre-school.
I don't mean the usual quiz nights and bingos but things like Autumn fairs or other fundraising evenings. What have you done that is a bit out of the ordinary that the children could get involved with to raise funds or that the parents have really liked the sound of and turned out to support?
Would love to hear your tips TIA

sorry to butt in but am bumping this as I could do with some ideas too...

Receipe book.

We got the mums/children to give us their favourite receipes, it was then bound. All the receipes were named after the children who had given them i.e. Warren's Wiggly Worms. (meatballs and pasta) or Sam's Super Salad.

anyone else?

Auction of donated goods/services, and some sold for 'clients', ie; the Nursery kept a percentage of the money taken, like a proper auction. We took £1600 ish on the day, and over £1000 as profit. A LOT OF WORK, but really fun!

We have done two Food Nights with a band and bar which each raised about £700. One was a Chinese Night (for Chinese New Year) and the other was a World Food Night with lots of different kinds of food - European, Asian, American etc etc. I think a Curry Night would work well too. We got a bunch of people to make food (we refunded the cost of ingredients) then sold tickets at £10 per head, with a maximum of 70 on offer. We held it at the Village Hall so didn't spend much on hiring a room.

We got a bar licence and bought a load of booze and soft drinks on sale or return then ran a bar which was really easy and made about half the profit.

I think we also did a written quiz at £1 a sheet.

Also had a band (which was free as we knew them) after the meal.

They were both really popular and enjoyable to run and made lots of money!

HTH