@doschicos it’s a card game. I played it a lot in high school, and college in the Midwest. No one heard of it where I live in New England.
It’s a great game!!
Euchre is popular in I’ll say the Great Lakes area. 
Def Ohio and Michigan and other nearby states.
One of the local libraries does an annual wine tasting event. The wine vendors come for free and pour samples all night which generate sales for them They are coordinated through a local wine store. They serve very light appetizers and charge $75 admission (which I think is high but nobody minds). They have done a wine pull at the event. They get a number of bottles which are donated and are of varying value. You buy a ticket for some amount (I think is was $20) and get a random wine back. Since the bottles are donated it is all profit. Some of the bottles are expensive, so it is like a wine lottery - you don’t know what you will get.
The local PTO raises a lot of money with a big bingo night. The prizes are all donated and you pay admission. It sells out every year. Lots of the women use it as a fun ladies night and buy tables for their friends.
our neighbor is a host for local Trivia Night fundraisers. He was a Jeopardy winner many years ago! He puts together his own sets of questions - its a huge hit. I’d like to set it up with our PTO sometime. . . . Lots of helpful ideas here.
still wondering about the lottery ticket frame - is the whole thing sold as one item?
Our town does a yearly “wine walk” to support a local charity (the charity changes). People buy tickets and then visit the participating stores along the “walk”. There are something like 40-50 business involved and two different routes. Each store has a different wine to try. Some stores have bites of food as well. Many of the shops will have a wine walk sale and most people shop along the way. Win for the charity and win for local businesses. Very highly attended and super fun.
When my pups were in high school, they organized a “candy gram” fundraiser where kids (or teachers) would fill out an index card with the recipient student or teacher’s name, and at the end of the week, volunteer students would come to their homeroom class and deliver the cards, with a ribbon and a candy cane attached. They used several boxes of candy canes we had gotten the prior January (when clearanced, but with a 2-plus year expiration date) and donated index cards. It was a fun activity for a group of their friends to hang out together and organize them, but they raised several hundred dollars pretty easily.
Another fundraiser for our food pantry that they worked on was an Xmas gift wrapping project at the local mall. Someone had donated gift wrap and ribbons, and the students who needed “community service hours” got together to wrap presents for “donations” and most people were thrilled not to have to wrap the gifts by themselves. They did this for three weekends before Xmas, getting students to sign up in shifts, and raised nearly $2,000.
Agree with Thumper–I’d don’t know if eucre is regional, but my inlaws from Ohio loved to play it. I live in MA and I don’t know anyone who plays it here.
@bgbg4us It’s one big frame filled with tickets. Usually part of a silent auction.
@Gourmetmom Does the winning bidder take possession of the frame as well or is that just for display purposes and you reuse that for future events?
@doschicos They take the whole thing with them. I get the poster frame (24x36" or so) at a local craft store - costs around $20. It’s just a narrow black plastic frame that contains a cardboard backing and a thin sheet of plexiglass. I take it apart, easy peasy, then using double stick tape, attach the lottery tickets to the backing, covering the whole thing. Then I put the plexiglass over the top and slide it back into the frame (most come with some sort of fastener on the back). I stick a big bow on the corner of the frame, and that’s it. It’s very colorful and people just love them - I make a couple every year for various events.
Very clever, @Gourmetmom. Hopefully if they win a big prize, they’ll gift some to the charity!
The best fundraiser with the least amount of time and labor is a pop can drive. Works great for sports teams looking to raise easy cash in just a few hours. We send kids out in groups of 2 or 3 (student or parent drivers) to their neighborhood to pick up at homes, and wearing their team gear. Parents were stationed at local grocery stores to feed into the machines and cash in the slips for money. 30 kids would easily raise $800+ in 2 hours. Have kids bring their own kitchen garbage bags.
Best time to do this is the day (or Saturday) after a holiday. People have lots of returnables and are usually happy to give their bags to kids.
Can drive wouldn’t work everywhere. Some states, like NJ, don’t have a can deposit law.
Only 11 states have deposits on containers but good way to raise cash in state that do.
Reminds me of that Seinfeld episode where Kramer and Newman had the scheme to get the deposit money in Michigan.
Guess I assume that most states have deposits. And I’m in Michigan.
Wine walks are quite popular here ! But organizing one requires a lot of effort and needs police presence (for obvious reasons). The walkers typically get a certain number of tokens with their admission; each pour is 1-2 tokens. Lessens the chances of having to deal with some very plastered walkers at the end.
My friend’s employer does a companywide auction to raise funds for a cancer charity every year. We generally donate a bottle of good booze to this cause. It sells for 3x-5x of the store price. A local law school has an annual gala and silent auction to fund their public interest law internships. Folks tell me that clever stuff (and booze) usually gets a lot of bidding. One year, a hot ticket item was a cake that looked like a pile of law textbooks. You guessed it, the top book in the pile was “Torts.”
You couldn’t get this done for this year but maybe for another year…
Team up with a nursery who will provide you with fall mums and greenery at holiday time. Take pre-orders. Usually when the quality is good people are happy to buy from an organization. Could also do fall or spring bulbs.
I remember when the deposit went into effect in Michigan. I was in college and dating to be H. There was a fancy new restaurant in my college town that we wanted to try but couldn’t afford. We decided to scour our campuses (he was at another campus) and pick up randomly left cans in the library, after class, in the laundry room in the dorm, etc. and cash them in to save to pay the bill for a nice meal at the restaurant. It was delicious! (sorry, off topic I know - but also sort of on topic - our own fundraiser!!!)
I do think euchre might be regional; I’m in Ohio. It is not super easy to pick up so if it isn’t known in your area, a bingo night or even bunco night if that’s popular there would be the same idea.