[Doug G]

I'm still agast at hearing about teams' confidence in raising $20k. This past year we sent proposals to over 150 companies in our area with only 2 sponsorships in return for a total of $200. Idealy we would have students / parents doing follow-ups with many of these companies, but I have yet to have any parent volunteer to do this. Even our PTA, err Boosters organization, is just a handful of parents that try to get $$ for our athletics teams and our Band. They did what they could to get us $250. All of the parents on our team work (no stay at home moms/dads to help us) during the week and they do what they can for us on the weekend (bringing food, running to hardware store, make sure students wear their safety glasses, etc..). Luckily our saving grace has been the continued support of our local Rotary ($1k) and the addition of our only large corporate sponser, Goodrich, which contributed $2k. Other than that our district has bailed us out by chipping in $5k. The rest of the $$ came from selling pizzas afterschool and the students holding a LAN party. So we absolutely struggled to raise $10k (for 2 comps + materials), and left students to pay any expenses and sometimes materials. Will we be able to raise $1k - $2k more next year - I don't know? But we will try? Yep... As the sole adult on the team that organizes the fundraising - I'm just starting to worry about getting burned out. I guess I just lack that entrepeneurship attitude - maybe I should have watched more of Trump's reality show. The extra $1k - $2k will be hard on us, but we we'll try.