A few years ago, the PTA at my kids' elementary school needed someone to be the Grocery Rewards Coordinator. I thought I was the perfect person since I shop at grocery stores. It's an easy job in that all I have to do is connect with local grocery stores for their programs and then encourage parents to link their shopping card. Apparently, I've done pretty well since I was asked this year to be the Box Tops for Education Coordinator and the Dining for Dollars Chair. The latter actually takes some real time and work. I contact restaurants (or they contact us), and we pick a day where a portion of the proceeds of sales go back to the school.
We had our first event (that was already arranged before I started) at a local Chick-fil-a. They give 20% of their proceeds when you mention our school, and we earned $300. Not bad. A few weeks later, I got an email from the PTA President who copied me on a message from someone else who booked a Dining for Dollars event on her own. Um, I thought I was the Dining for Dollars Chair. RESPECT MY AUTHORITY!
Anyway, this person booked an event at an ice cream place for a Tuesday in late-October. This seems like a great idea earlier or later in the year when the weather is better. As it turns out, it was about 50 degrees and very windy. Not quite ideal for eating ice cream outside. The main issue for me, though, is that this place only gives 10% of sales to the school. That's lower than every other restaurant that does this.
So this person convinced some teachers to be "guest scoopers." If you dressed in costume, an additional 10% went to the school. When I brought my kids, there were about 10 people from the school and no one was in costume. Fast-forward to a few days ago when I'm working with some people for the next event. I asked how we did with the ice cream night, I learned that we made $870. $870!?!?! So that means that the ice cream place did a minimum of $4,350 in sales. To paraphrase my kids, I'm sus. Or maybe, that's sus. I'm probably not using this phrase correctly. Basically, this is very suspicious or suspect. I spent about $13 on ice cream for my kids. I'm sure other people spent more, so let's say that the average person spent $20. That would mean that 217.5 people/families purchased ice cream on a cold and windy Tuesday night. Again, I'm sus.
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I am also the one organizing restaurant nights for our PTO! I am greatly sus of the $870. We recently got $360 from a Chipotle and it was HOPPING that night, and they give 30% of proceeds.
I said I wanted to organize one at a local pizza place, and someone said they knew the owner and they would do it, but alas it's been a month and they haven't done it and I don't know who they are. Hopefully I can get this rolling at the next meeting.
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