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Earth Friendly Fundraising
School fundraisers turn eco-friendly
By Simona Covel
For decades, children have hawked candy and cookie dough to help fund extracurricular activities and school playgrounds.
Now a handful of entrepreneurs are offering ecologically friendly products for kids and parents to sell for school fundraisers.
From recycled wrapping paper to fair-trade coffee, the business owners are pitching the products as viable fundraising alternatives for schools.
It's good timing, as schools race to eliminate junk food in the face of rising childhood obesity rates.
Greenraising, a California startup that started selling eco-friendly products last year, has helped about 500 schools and non-profits raise money, said founder Lisa Olson.
The company asks schools or non-profits to distribute its catalog, from which customers then buy directly.
Such companies can face a challenge to develop products that parents and friends will purchase year after year.
Both Greenraising and Toronto-based Green Students Fundraising Ltd. plan to periodically change the items in their catalogs.
"Every successful fundraising company offers something that's fairly low-priced and offers frequency of purchase," says Tim Sullivan, founder of PTO Today, a Wrentham, Mass., magazine for parent-teacher organizations.
Lots of families also buy coffee, which is something that led eco-minded schools to contact Chris Treter, co-founder of Higher Grounds Trading Co., a fair-trade coffee roaster in Traverse City, Mich.
Fair-trade coffee is a concept begun a few years ago by small producers that wanted to show consumers their coffee is produced under conditions beneficial to workers and the environment.
Schools looking to incorporate lessons about the environment and labor standards will call and ask if they can purchase the coffee for a fundraiser, Treter added. greenraising.org