One thing I am often surprised about is the lack of fundraising in Japan. In New Zealand if you are involved in sports you usually spend quite a lot of time raising money to help pay for trips away etc. I can remember doing raffles, making zillions of pizzas, baking cakes to sell to teachers , selling chocolate etc. etc. Schools had work days where you used to clean windows, mow lawns, wash cars etc. to help raise money for the school (they used to... I have no idea if they still do). In Japan parents are just expected to fork out money for everything - especially sports related things. I have tried to explain to as many people as I can the importance of children actually helping to raise the money in order for them to really appreciate the trips etc. they are going on and the team spirit that it can help create, but have never actually seen it being done here. Our school has two "fundraising" events each year - a "bazaar" in February and this morning's activity... collecting beer bottles! The families from each area get together and go around collecting all the empty beer bottles and take them to the collection point at school. Despite the fact that we start at 8am it is actually quite fun. The kids have a great time riding around on the back of the truck (don't tell the safety police....) and the adults wander around chatting. An hour or so later and it is all over for another year. I have no idea how much money is raised, but I have a feeling that there may be a few other ways to reduce the amount of money we seem to be continually forking out each month to pay for things at school. Gotta love "free" education!
My mum said that in Australia fundraising just got out of control in many place. She felt obliged to support the schools and local groups but twice a week she had people asking her to do things which she couldn't really afford. My neice attends a Catholic school and they have a 'fundraising fee', not sure how much it is but it menas parents don't have to come up with extra money during the year. It is a good idea but like you said the kids don't learn to appreciate the money until they've had to work for it.
ReplyDeleteOur school does a recycling day six times a year-newspapers, cardboard, milk cartons, cans, manga and a few other things. We are only a small school but they get a fair bit of money for 2 hours work.
mmmm I can see both points of view, on the one hand I do think in general kids here could do with a bit more working for their extras but yeah it got a bit crazy in Oz with cookies and chocolate and wine and sponsoring etc etc. And some campaigns the parents had to pre-buy the goods to sell to boot! That's a bit rough!
ReplyDeleteI am impressed at your bottle collectig starting at 8 and at the kids being a part of it. Ours starts at 6:30 and only grade 5/6 kids are out there with the mums and all the yakuin. I took Meg last time as we had scheduling issues (at 6:30 in the morning can you believe it????) and she had a ball so I think I'll keep bringing them along and they ca help me earn money for the school!
This year ours was all donated to Tohoku. What is your school using it for?