<p>My child’s daycare is a big fan of fundraising. And while their causes are noble, they are not causes that our family chooses to support. They run pleas for funding to support their foundation all the time.</p>
<p>The latest puts us in a bit of a bind. They are planning on holding a silent auction featuring artwork that the kids have made. In other words, they’d like the parents to buy their kids artwork that the kids created. Of course, our tuition dollars are paying for their supplies and staff time to make the artwork.</p>
<p>I’m torn. When I was in public elementary school, we did this sort of thing. We all make artwork for the school’s artwork and could sell it for up to $0.50. We had the option to make it display only, sell to parents only, or sell to anyone. As a kid I thought that was really neat. </p>
<p>But as an adult, I understand that having to buy your kids schoolwork (that they were graded on and is part of their cirrculum and education) is awkward, even if it is “art”. It wouldn’t make sense to charge parents $0.50 per exam if they want to see it or $0.25 for each graded homework assignment.</p>
<p>So from a philosophical standpoint, I’m not sure that I agree with the idea of the daycare silent auction. If we’re paying them $7 an hour for them to care for our kids, we should receive the creations from our kids that they create. We shouldn’t have to buy them back from the daycare for an additional fee, even if that fee is going to a noteworthy cause.</p>
<p>Thanks for the reminder.
When my oldest was in elementary the TA was a practicing artist. ( art was always a big part of their program- really amazing stuff- they had the 1st graders doing reduction prints).
Anyway- they had a show- where their stuff was mounted and arranged just like at a gallery and parents & friends came through drinking cups of apple juice and noted what they wanted to purchase.
It was so fun.</p>
<p>When my younger daughter was in school- the yearly auction was arts focused although we had other things as well- big time artists who were parents donated pieces & the parents worked with each class through the year for their class project. One class always made beautiful quilts for instance. These pieces were sold through the live auction- so it really got the bidding going, because every one wanted the piece that their child worked on.
One year, my H made a really nice cedar & copper wire arbor, and the class made ceramic & glass pieces that we attached to decorate it- it was gorgeous- but it went for way over our budget :(</p>
<p>However, the whole point is to raise money for the school- anything raised is ultimately going to benefit the kids, including your own- so I don’t understand the miserliness of not wanting to contribute.</p>
<p>DS’s middle school did this, and often parents weren’t the buyers. Some of the pieces were really good and would create quite the bidding war. Teachers often bid and hung the work in their rooms.</p>
<p>Don’t buy the piece if you don’t want, but I don’t see anything wrong with what they’re doing.</p>
<p>The idea would be better if it wasn’t something part of the curriculum that the children are graded on. That seems like the kind of thing that should go to parents.</p>
<p>
Are you saying that the funds being raised aren’t going to the daycare, but to some controversial issue?</p>
<p>If it’s going to the daycare, I don’t see a problem other than that these are graded assignments (though what do “grades” mean in daycare, really?). $7/hour seems like something that needs to be supplemented, as even if they have a lot of kids, they’ll need a lot of personnel for various positions.</p>
<p>I thought you had a baby, who would be a little young to be doing artwork. </p>
<p>It’s not a fee. It’s a donation, being marketed with the clever gimmick of “selling” artwork. “Buying” your child’s artwork is much more fun than just writing a donation check. I doubt they are selling all of your child’s artwork. Generally, most of it comes home. It eventually gets to the point where you would gladly pay the daycare or school to NOT send it home. This is when you are staging late-night commando maneuvers to sneak the excess out to the trash can without your child noticing. </p>
<p>Get used to writing the donation checks. Public, minimum wage private, $$$ private, it makes no difference, they will all be asking. </p>
<p>Our children’s preschool would do group art projects: a large ceramic platter with the children’s handprints and names, a quilt made up of fabric decorated by the children, and so forth. The result was something that was both a lovely memento and actually useable/displayable. Sales prices went up to near $1k.</p>
<p>This feeling will continue. I left the parent run board years ago over this. My son is a senior in high school and this issue still raises its head.</p>
<p>Right now I’m being bombarded with donation requests for his “Senior Celebration” which started out as a great idea that has deteriorated. His class of 500+ needs a place to unwind after graduation. I get that part, but some of the activities the parents have chosen are questionable. For example, for the past few years a hypnotist is brought in and entertains the crowd by hypnotizing students. While said students are hypnotized on a volunteer basis, the “entertainment” part is to watch them act like five-year-olds. Many of them cry, get scared, and scratch themselves in inappropriate places.</p>
<p>There are other examples but I won’t go on.</p>
<p>OP - you seem to have a real philosophical issue with your kid´s day care. My kids´private school have found raising all the time. There are parents who donate their vacation homes, art work, quilt, wine for auctions. Often we pay way over market price for those things to donate to school. I paid $1000 for a little stepping stool with D2´s whole pre-school class little hand prints on it. The stool probably cost $20, 15 min for the teacher to paint it white, and had 8 kids´hand prints on it. </p>
<p>At the end of day, you either believe what they are doing, or you don´t. Personally, if you are really paying $7/hr for someone to take care of your kid, then you are under paying.</p>
<p>To clarify, the cause isn’t to support the daycare or activities for the children there.</p>
<p>It’s to support a different cause that is outside of the daycare and neither the parents nor the children at the facility will benefit from the cause.</p>
<p>I’m curious regarding all the negative comments regarding the $7/hr daycare cost. Doesn’t that depend on the area of the country? Lots of people in my area <em>make</em>
$8-10/hr. No one around here is paying $7/hr for daycare.</p>
<p>I understand the sentiment that you don’t support the causes. Like other posters commented, both that feeling and definitely, oh definitely, the fundraising will continue…at least until your child graduates from college It gets old, but they all need to supplement the funding.</p>
<p>We pay any necessary school/activity fees. Additionally, I donate to those school clubs, etc. that I want to support. My kid doesn’t do the selling the candles, cookie dough, etc. It’s kid #3–past the guilt part long ago.</p>
<p>oh just given em $5.00 and be done with it. Honestly with all the stuff that you probably should be over thinking, this just isn’t one of them. Or here’s a thought, just give your kid some paper and paint at home and get it for free!</p>
<p>Loved Pugs response…just smile and bear it, it’s really a no biggie…preschool probably needs some more money, it’s tough running a day care…</p>
<p>My children are also daycare aged. (And yes, it’s daycare until the children are school-aged, around five or six. Calling all-day daycare for three- and four-year-olds “school” is, to my mind, silly. Props to the OP for recognizing that!)</p>
<p>A few points.</p>
<p>First, $7/hr is a fair price for all-day care in a Montessori or Montessori-inspired environment. But I think the OP knows that and mentioned this fundraising is not to supplement the school’s needs.</p>
<p>Second, no, I do not think it’s appropriate to ask children to give up their artwork, especially not big projects, to support causes that they may not be able to understand, or which their parents do not support.</p>
<p>In fact, I’ve never heard of a school holding a fundraiser for another entity, especially not one that is in the least controversial. I don’t think that is appropriate and it’s not an appropriate use of the children’s time, either.</p>
<p>I don’t mind fundraising for school trips and activities, because I realize that schools are under-funded. I’d rather just donate the profits or sell something useful, but I have no problem with adding to the pool so kids can do stuff like go to the museum or whatever.</p>
<p>But fundraising for something else is different. They need to keep their own charitable wishes out of their school. The artwork belongs to the child, not them, and it’s really not okay.</p>
<p>I agree with not sweating the small stuff. Just buy it, unless the cause truly is morally objectionable.</p>
<p>I will give an example of an instance where we, on a continuing basis, refused to support an activity in which ds was involved. Ds was in Scouts, and each year when the distric council did its fund drive it would get a nice letter from us saying how we wouldn’t support the larger organization because of its anti-gay stance and that we continue to support our ds and the local patrol and will continue to work from within to change policy. At our local patrol, we had kids with two moms, etc. We wouldn’t have continued to let our ds be a part of a patrol that actively believed the espousings of the national organization. So I can see instances where your day care may be supporting a cause that you may not support.</p>
<p>And I hope this example doesn’t derail the thread. Just that at first I wondered why he’d send his kid to a day care that supports causes he doesn’t, but then it occurred to me that we have an example of that, as well.</p>
<p>My daughter is in high school and every year they hold an auction to benefit the photography department. Artwork she and others in the program have done throughout the year are put up for bid. My daughter’s work has rasied A LOT of money for the program the past three years. There are often bidding wars on favored pieces and they end up selling for hundreds of dollars. I see absolutely nothing wrong with this, the arts are so underfunded they have to make up the difference somehow.</p>
<p>Your D’s photography benefited the program that she was in, right?</p>
<p>Maybe it wasn’t clear from my original post. The daycare fundraiser money goes to an outside entity not affilated with the daycare and not something that benefits the families that have their kids in daycare.</p>
<p>It’s more like if your D photography was being sold to support Habitat for Humanity or to install water treatment equipment in Mexico.</p>
<p>I have never seen a child care facility that was so well-funded it could actually raise money for some other cause. Certainly not at $7/hour . . . which of course has to go towards capital costs and administration, as well as wages. Is this part of a church or some other, larger fundraising organization?</p>
<p>If it is church-related . . . well, then, churches do this sort of thing all the time. It comes with the territory. If you send your kid to a church school, your kid is going to spend time and effort raising money for the church, one way or another, and whether or not you agree with the church on everything. That’s part of the deal.</p>
Out of curiosity, what is the outside entity or cause? If it’s controversial or unsupported, they really shouldn’t be doing anything like that. Especially on a mandatory basis.</p>
<p>It doesn’t sound like this is an immediate issue for your family. Your child is, I believe, about four months old? </p>
<p>You can choose not to “buy” the artwork, with the smiling and polite excuse that your house is already full of your child’s creations. If you’re otherwise happy with the daycare, this seems like a small issue in the grand scheme of things. If the daycare is holding all of the children’s artwork hostage, or is cherrypicking the nicest pieces to sell off, then maybe it’s time to look for another daycare.</p>
It gets old, but they all need to supplement the funding.</p>