One of the hardest things to do in regards to fundraising is getting the group’s motivation to start selling products. Coaches and sponsors work hard to get their students interested in raising funds by encouraging team pride with spirit wear, offering incentives, and raising interest in helping their activity.

“We give them the incentive to fundraise and also explain fully why it’s necessary and whatever they raise does come back to them,” said Doug Schultz, varsity softball coach. “When it comes down to motivation, there isn’t little.”

FCCLA members wanted to compete at State Level. But supplies were needed, so they fundraised for their supplies. Lee explained how her members were already motivated.

“[Our] members were already motivated to fundraise because they knew it was for their supplies,” said Lee. “They helped make the posters/signs.”

Occasionally, incentives to fundraise are offered in order to encourage the students to begin selling. Both softball and water polo awarded incentives to those who sold the most products.

“[For softball], we do have typically enough money to give a team a pizza party, so one motive that I am doing this year is to give the winning team with the most boxes [of cookie dough] sold a pizza party,” said Schultz. “Freshman, junior varsity, and varsity [teams competed]. They all have equal amounts of girls on each team, so whatever team fundraises the most total boxes will get a pizza party.”

Believe it or not, selling products can be quite stressful. When students need money to buy required gear for sports and clubs, time for fundraising is tight.

“We only had one week [to fundraise] and that was kind of hard to complete. I sold at my church but some people didn’t have the money, but I got [people] the week after,” said Lynna Leimbeer, a sophomore water polo player. “It was a Tuesday to Tuesday timeline which was awful.”

When selling fresh products, time is extremely limited. FCCLA bought fresh Dunkin’ Donuts each day to fundraise during lunch. Purchasing mass amounts of donuts that do not have a sure chance of selling by the end of the day can be quite nerve racking.

“It was stressful to sell the donuts on the idea that it would be fresh. We bought the donuts early in the morning and hoped to sell all of it that day,” said Lee. “We would never have sold donuts that were not freshly made that day. However, by the end of 4C lunch, donut boxes were empty.”

Although fundraising can be extremely stressful, hard work is paid off when the products come back for students to use, such as sports gear, club supplies, and spirit wear.

“Our members were motivated to fundraise because they knew it was for their supplies,” said Lee.