School summer fair help

[EggBlanket]

Hello,

I’ve offered to help plan our school summer fair and I wanted to ask what brilliant ideas other people had to raise money.

We’re keen to have a BBQ but the school doesn’t have BBQ equipment. Is this something best outsourced to a catering company who will share the profits with the school? There are 300 kids so potentially a lot of burgers and sausages!

Thanks in advance!

The trouble with bbq food is that it can take a while to cook so unless you have a huge bbq you will get long hungry queues, who could be spending money elsewhere. Last time we did a school bbq ( 600 kids) we cooked a lot of the food in the staffroom oven and brought it to the bbq to be given that bbq flavour on the grill for a few minutes.

Hot dogs (the boil to heat type) are easier to bulk cook than burgers etc.

Very (very, very) big school, but we used to get a number of caterers in, who paid for the slot but then kept all the profit.

Talk to local organisations or businesses that might have the facilities.

Scouts are a good call. Or groups like Roundtable.

Or just get a business in to cater. You might not get money directly from this but you get the service you want.

I wouldn't expect a company to share their profits with the school, unless the company are parents of a current pupil.
How about a traditional raffle? You could ask local businesses for prize donations. Or make up packs of sweets to sell. Or a cake sale (that always went down well when I was teaching).

My school once did a mix of BBQ and hot dogs - the ones you just dunk in boiling water. Children seemed to prefer the hot dogs. They obviously are quicker to cook.
At the Christmas fairs we just used the school kitchens so it was still burgers etc but cooked indoors.
But you really need a cook (or several) who knows what they are doing. Are any school parents chefs or cooks in their jobs? Health and safety on food has got to be spot on.
If you do go ahead - get decent vegetation alternatives. I've eaten some damm awful falafel type sausages or nut burgers in my time.

We used to borrow BBQs from local parents, and promise to clean them!
A local butcher might do it for a split of takings, we did that a couple of times too. Similar arrangement with an ice-cream van - he would bung me a couple of hundred or so in used notes ;-)
Krispy Kremes will sell you ring donuts in bulk.