Fundraising 

Peter Sarpy Elementary, Bellevue Public Schools Open COF Store

 Shared by Kerri Rothanzl


Our two Circle of Friends groups are learning leadership skills and responsibility! We are starting a COF Store to fundraise for our field trips. The kids are very excited to sell Blow pops and Smencils, make posters, and learn the logistics of starting a "business."


Kerri’s Tip:

Next week, we are going on an outing to the Kroc Center in Omaha. In addition to exploring all the center has to offer, we are bringing a donation of socks that we've been collecting in our building for the past week. This is a great way for the kids to give back to the community. 




La Vista West-Papillion La Vista’s COF Group Makes Things Happen! 

Shared by Brandi Frazer


Our Circle of Friends is doing a T-shirt fundraiser. The students picked designs as well as colors of the shirts. They created posters to hang around the school and made a video together about inclusion that will be shared with each classroom! They will help design the thank you cards that go with the shirts as well! It is a great chance to work together, educate about inclusion and have fun! 




Successful Fundraiser at Tri-County

Shared by Hannah Gay


Very successful fundraiser! We hosted a PowderBuff Volleyball tournament for grades 7-12 and teachers. The members of COF were in charge of planning it. The girls were the coaches and the boys were the players. They worked together to form teams for each grade, created different shirts for each grade, they worked with our entrepreneurship class to have these created, found teachers to play and coach, worked with our shop class to make the trophies for the winning team, and ran the tournament the day of. We wanted to branch out our inclusive group to the rest of the student body. We invited the community to come and watch and cheer on their favorite class. It was a round robin double elimination tournament. We invited a member of our community who is a photographer that takes pictures during sporting events to make this feel like even more of a competition. We had such great feedback from students and community members! Students who were competing (boys) paid $20 and the girls paid $15. This covered the cost of the shirts and tournament "entrance fees". We had a small concession stand that was run by our COF members as well. The championship game came down to the teachers vs the senior class. This was so fun for everyone to watch and see everyone be involved! The girls are now wanting to plan a PowderPuff tournament for the spring where they play football and the boys are the coaches. There are more rules and items that went into place to get this tournament going so if you have any questions please feel free to shoot me an email! I think this was a great way to get more students involved in something different and fun! I have included two pictures taken by Klasek Photography, one of the sophomore class: my biggest participating class for COF, and one of the championship team, the teachers. 



 Circle of Friends groups can be run with no financial investment at all. There is no need to do any fundraising. However, if you would like to raise money for your group, here's some ideas. Remember, fundraisers don't necessarily have to be "one more thing" added to your plate. They can be embedded into your meetings, social skill instruction, academic goals, and activities. Fundraisers provide the opportunity for kids to:

Negotiate For Circle of Friends To Be a Paid Activity Per Your Teacher Contract

Shared by Mary Schlieder

Our administration LOVES Circle of Friends. It has resulted in decreased bullying and fewer office referrals. Our principal likes getting compliments about our program on his travels throughout the state. We've proven the program's worth to our school counselors who refer kids regularly. Our school board president has a granddaughter in our group. Circle of Friends has become part of our school culture, the "way we do things". This visibility made it easy for us to ask our teacher union negotiating committee to ask for Circle of Friends to be considered a paid activity, the same as Speech, FBLA, Skills USA, and FFA. We were able to negotiate 1% of base pay for our facilitators (we co-lead and split the money). It's not a huge amount of cash, however, it ensures the program will continue long after Cof leaders move on. 

Learn more about fundraising ideas on this short video. 

Candy Boquet Fundraiser at Tri-County

Shared by Hannah Gray

The 7th and 8th grade COF group of Tri County Public School made a goal to be able to go on our yearly field trip at the end of this school year. I told them that we would need to do a fundraiser because we no longer received funds like we have in the past. We learned of a great idea from a school that I used to teach at. We decided to sell candy bouquets. 

There were two different options for the buyers to choose from. They could either get a large bouquet- 8 full size and 5 fun sized candies for $20 or a small bouquet- 11 fun sized candies for $10. The group of friends had to come up with a good flyer to post around the school and onto the school's social media. They then worked on budgeting by comparing prices of the materials that were needed. 

When the supplies arrived the students worked together to make the bouquets come to life. Some students were separating candy into the correct piles for bouquets, some were assembling them onto sticks, others were starting to get buckets ready by filling them with styrofoam and paper, while others were taking their time to write out the cards that people had requested to be sent with their bouquets. We had a great circle of friends this year that made sure to include our two friends each step of the way and helped them when they struggled. The students then worked as a team to deliver the bouquets among the school as well as our communities. They worked with their friends on communication skills when delivering as well as acting appropriate when approaching somebody's home. 

The students were able to raise $1230 by selling 49 small bouquets and 37 large bouquets. After costs were taken out the students had $597.09 to use on their trip. The students really wanted to go to Urban Air in Lincoln but we learned that it was not open during the day. The students decided on Round One in Lincoln for bowling and arcade games. We also tie dyed shirts as a group and another teacher screen printed them for us to wear on our trip!   We then finished our trip at Runza for some lunch. The students were able to work on their social skills in a different environment and had a great time with their peers! I have included pictures from the process of making them, to delivering, to making shirts, and finally some pictures from our trip! 



Fundraising Ideas, Shared by Stacy Stewart of Rising City

The Shelby Rising City Circle of Friend's groups have been busy! In March they opened a coffee cart on Friday mornings for staff members to purchase coffee and snacks. This weekly event is operated by the Circle of Friend's members. The coffee cart is called the SRC Grind. The SRC Grind is becoming popular for their iced coffees and breakfast foods! Money skills, daily living skills, and social skills are worked on during operating hours. The SRC Grind made a profit of $500!!! 

On May 18, the SRC Circle of Friend's members helped to organize and run a Little Feet Meet Special Olympics track day for the elementary students. Members helped to run 9 stations that involved physical activity. During this event a check for $300(part of the profit from the coffee cart) was presented to Megan a representative from Special Olympics who was in attendance. The group also made a swimming sign to send to the Special Olympics for encouragement. 

The Circle of Friend's group also sent a $200 check to their local Night to Shine Event. 

We are enjoying building friendships and spreading kindness!




Norris High School Concession Stand Fundraiser,  Shared by Jen Faz

Our high school runs concession stands at most sporting and school sponsored events. Any group seeking funds for projects can schedule events to sell snacks for 50% of the proceeds. For our Circle of Friends group fall fundraisers, several of our students work the concession stand at home football games. A portion of the money will be donated to AAP as a way to give back for their support of the CoF program, and the rest will be put in a prom fund for students in need of money for prom dresses, tux rentals, and other costs associated with this event. Not only do we earn money to give back to others, but our kids have the opportunity to practice social skills, appropriate hygiene, math, and community service. Plus, they love it because it's so much fun!

Coat Checking for Cash, Shared by Megan Misegadis

Have a designated place near the entrance to late fall and winter indoor sporting events such as basketball and wrestling for spectators to check their coats. Your group can either charge a small fee per  coat or even do a free will offering. Have your CoF kids make a sign so "customers" know their donations will go to benefit the school Circle of Friends.  Another idea from Megan: Buy bulk chocolate espresso beans and sell them the Monday-Friday the week before and during finals. Her daughter did this fundraiser and got the local coffee shop to donate coffee to sell, to the tune of approximately $200.

Bake Sale at Ravenna Elementary, Shared by Brandy Brodersen

We are doing a bake sale every Friday in the month of April to be able to give back to AAP for all the wonderful ideas and support for COF.  Parents of all students are encouraged to send items to be sold.  All elementary students are encouraged to bring money to purchase items every Friday!  Our COF group has gotten together to make an easy snack, put it in baggies, and work on team work!  They then are in charge of running the bake sale every Friday working on social skills, money skills, and again team building! 


Staff Jeans Day at York Public Schools, Shared by Stacy Kohmetscher

We encouraged staff and students to wear blue on April 2nd in honor of International Autism Awareness Day. Staff could also wear jeans for a $5 donation. We raised over $600!

Paying For Out of School Activities

Many groups never go on out of school time outings and that's just fine. However, if this is something you'd like to do with your kids, here's how most schools do it. We charge students to get into any event we plan (for example bowling, movies, out for food). We'll call the event manager and ask for discounts and often they will! For example, our kids only pay $10 for two games of bowling and shoe rental. Most kids can come up with the money, however, we never want a student who wants to come to be left out. So, we always tell kids if they can't afford to attend to see us and we'll pay for them. We use our concession money for this purpose. 

Amherst High School Fundraiser Supports Autism Awareness

Shared by Stacy Ringlein

Here are photos of  Amherst Autism Awareness Day on April 12th.  We raised over $300.  The picture with the little boys is of our preschool participants.  The picture with smaller group is our Circle of Friends group who designed, took orders, and distributed the t-shirts.  Our Circle of Friends group actually had the idea for the shirt then one of our members designed it!!!  We sold over 80 shirts!  


Autism Awareness Hat Day at Amherst High School

Shared by Stacy Ringlein

During the last couple weeks of April, our student with autism picked out autism facts with our SLP.  These facts were read over the announcements to our student body!  On the last day of April, we raised money for Autism Awareness with a hat day.  Students could bring a $1 to wear a hat for the day!  For our first year, we raised $90.50.  This is our Circle of Friends group plus students who either donated or wore a hat!  Sorry for fuzzy picture but we had to share for a great cause!!!! 

Thayer Central Autism Awareness

Shared by Laurie Fischer and Lisa Richardson

Our CoF group at Thayer Central in Hebron is sporting our new CoF t-shirts we had made this year for our group (thanks to the great suggestions we received from several other CoF groups in our state.  Our group chose this neat design).  Our group worked for several sessions prior to April 2nd to research, make cool puzzle piece posters with Autism facts, and had a daily Autism fact read over our announcements each day during the week.  Our local high school news channel let us prepare an Autism Awareness short video which aired at our local high school and is available on our Thayer Central website.  We also had a table for two days during lunch.  We sold “blue” suckers and “blue” autism bracelets.  So far, we have made over $193 and we have a few suckers and bracelets to sell yet!  Thanks to some creative people, we have some great ideas for next year’s Autism Awareness day to add to what we can do to make others aware of Autism. 

Autism Art Project at Axtell Community School

Shared by Gara Hansen

On April 2nd, Beth Hanson. artist of the Autism Art Project spoke at Axtell Community School.  She spoke to various groups of students in the K-12 school promoting awareness and educating the students about students of autism.  Beth is a mother of a student with autism.  The bulletin board is in the main lobby to celebrate Autism Awareness the month of April.

A Month of Activity at Bellvue West

Shared by Joni Christensen and Ashley Kouba

We have been busy here at Bellevue West...here is what we have been up to!

*Creating Autism Awareness/Light It Up Blue posters

*Working on a presentation that staff and students will have the opportunity to attend April 30th (they must purchase a ticket for $1)

*Table at lunch every Tuesday and Thursday.  We have children's puzzles with one piece missing that students put together and then we talk about the one piece missing symbolizes Autism and the pieces of the puzzle that are still missing in finding a cause.  (We also give out candy and sell raffle tickets at this time).

*Reading facts about Autism for the daily announcements

Fund Raiser Activities:

Selling 50/50 raffle tickets 

Selling tickets for our Autism presentation that we will present during GPS (our last period of the day) on April 30th to wrap up the month of fun and festivities

Staff jeans day 

Spreading Awareness!

Autism Awareness and Fundraiser at Eagle Elementary School

Shared by Abbey Manning

For autism awareness month, our Circle of Friends group encouraged all students to wear blue on April 2nd for World Autism Awareness Day. We made posters and hung them up throughout our school. We had stickers for those that wore blue. I promoted that staff pay $15 to wear blue jeans four days during the month of April. The money raised will be sent to the Autism Action Partnership!


Successful Fundraiser at Amherst Public Schools, Shared by Stacy Ringlein

One of our students in our Circle of Friends has Rett Syndrome.  We did a partnership between our FBLA, sophomore class, and Circle of Friends to raise money for Rett Syndrome.  Kids designed shirts, took order forms around, sorted shirts, and then helped with our free will donation balloon release!!!  We had fantastic support and raised $1300 between our t-shirts and balloon release.  It was a fun week and we loved watching the kids work together.  Lots of pictures to share!!!


More Fundraising Ideas

Shared by Barb Gentrup

School Store: We run an after school store selling snacks - 4 days a week (M-Th) - all items are $0.50 and the store is run by students with SPED needs not just the CofF group.

We sold door hangers - puzzle piece shaped painted in blue with puzzle ribbon - We sold them for $15 and sold approximately 50.

We have a daily coffee business selling coffee to teachers - this is run by students with SPED needs not just the CofF group.

We have considered having a garage sale. 

We will be selling t-shirts - We have done this in the past but never used it as a fundraiser - We will in the future.

We have run the concession stand for District One Act - This was during the school day so again it was run by students with SPED needs not just the CofF group.

We are in the process of purchasing a laser cutter - This will be a business run by students with SPED needs. 

We have considered having a "meal" at one of the home basketball games or wresting meets.

We tried hosting a craft night where individuals would sign up and we would have a door hanger craft for them to make - with people there to help paint, decorate, etc.  

We are considering offering Christmas gift wrapping - Our Circle of Friends group would wrap the gifts for a small fee - Individuals would need to bring the gifts to school for us to wrap.

We considered selling personalized Gibbon Yeti cups