Genelle’s Story – Recommend getting a fund-raising buddy

It was really intimidating looking at the amount of money that I needed to raise in order to be a summer intern in the Dominican Republic. However, I was lucky and I had my best friend going with me, so I had someone to work with on the fund-raising. I would really recommend getting a fund-raising buddy or even a group of people together to work towards a common goal. We started out by doing a spaghetti dinner and fashion show, we got everything donated to us by local business’ and all of the clothing we used for the fashion show was from the Salvation Army. Our second fund-raiser was a coffee house hosted at our school, we got local talent to perform and served coffee, tea and hot chocolate along with some baked goods. We also had a raffle draw, where we sold tickets to win a hand made quilt, pillow or blanket. Then we had a movie night at our school, where we charged money for admission and sold popcorn. We made hand made jewelry and sold it at various places throughout the community. One of our local hairdressers offered to give us half the proceeds for every student from our school that got her hair done for prom. It was very helpful to get the press involved as well, because once we got ourselves in the local newspaper about what we were doing and posted our address’, money began coming to us in the mail. Both of us are also involved with the church so we asked the congregation for money and they were glad to help. Another really helpful thing to us was local groups and clubs such as the Optimists, they are always willing to help the youth. I really hope this can help someone else who is struggling with coming up with fund-raising ideas.