‘More than 300 people walked our scarecrow trail’


Inspirational fundraisiers to try


‘We raised £2,000 in two weeks with a pop-up charity shop’


T


here were a few empty shops in our town centre, and I thought


we might rent one as a pop-up charity shop for the PTA. I asked around, and a landlord agreed to rent us his shop for just £50 a week. The place had been lots of things over the years, including a hairdresser’s, an estate agent’s and an antique shop, but no one had lasted long – it was known as the shop of doom! I borrowed clothes rails from the


leisure centre and bookshelves from a local land agent. We put the word out on our Facebook page and the school newsletter, asking for donations of clothes, books, toys and bric-a-brac, as well as volunteers to run the shop. Loads of stuff came in. Some of it was pretty hideous, but some was


26 SPRING 2024 pta.co.uk


amazing – including a pool table that went for over £100. We didn’t price anything. We just said give us what you think it’s worth, so some people threw quite a lot of money in. We ran the shop from Monday to


Saturday for two weeks, opening at 9.30am and closing at 4pm, with a rota of 12 people. On the last day, we sold off everything that was left for 20p an item. The whole town supported the


shop, and we made over £2,000 in just a fortnight. Raising this much so quickly meant we could relax our fundraising efforts for a while afterwards, which we appreciated! Sian Pugh, chair, Rhayader CIW Primary School PTFA, Wales (240 pupils)


families to make a scarecrow of a character from their favourite children’s book or Disney film and display it outside their house. People bought a map from us with all the houses numbered on it, and over a weekend they had to walk the route and write down who they thought the characters were. At the end, the answers went into a draw, and the winners won prizes. The trail has now become an annual event that we hold every April, and this year was our most successful yet, with 300 people joining in. We got 22 households to make scarecrows, and we raised nearly £900. I think it was partly the theme, which was Julia Donaldson’s books; it inspired people to get incredibly creative, and some of them really went to town. One family made a 7ft tall Stick Man and another had the witch from Room


W


e held our first scarecrow trail during the pandemic, asking


AS TOLD TO: NUALA CALVI


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