Innovative Parents Organize Consignment Sale to Benefit School

Do you cringe when your children bring home the Sally Foster Fundraising Packet?  Are you tired of eating out at establishments you’d never go to just because it’s ‘spirit night’?  Do you hate hitting up friends and relatives to buy everything from ham to mattresses? 

All around us schools are struggling to make ends meet and the fundraisers get ever more frequent and - let’s face it – annoying.

That’s not the case for one Gwinnett County school whose parents work diligently almost all year and whose community calls as soon as school is back in session to find out when their two fundraisers are.  We’re talking about Winters Chapel UMC Preschool’s 20-year old fundraiser, Kids Closet at Winters Chapel.   

Last year, due to financial reasons, the school had to let their consignment manager go and was considering doing some cookie dough or other fundraiser to make up the revenue they usually got from these sales. The parents at Winters Chapel Preschool, which serves Peachtree Corners, Dunwoody and Alpharetta families, mulled this over and decided that the sale was too important to the school AND to their community. 

People have been known to come from as far away as Cobb, Forsyth and Fayette Counties to shop this consignment sale so the moms and dads of the tiny students of this small neighborhood school banded together and took on the monumental task of managing this sale start to finish: from creating a logo to cleaning up the church fellowship hall when it’s all done.

The parents now have two successful self-run sales under their belt and are thrilled that the feedback from both sellers and buyers has been so positive.  They’ve even made some changes to the sale to modernize the consignment process.  

Sellers tag their items using a software which generates barcodes and consequently they are able to track throughout the sale what sold and what is still in inventory.  This helps them determine pricing for next time, anticipate how much they will earn, as well as whether or not to bring the Mini Cooper or the Minivan for unsold item pick up when the sale is finished. 

The parents also decided that all of the sale ‘leftovers’ of any unsold items that the sellers did not want returned, would go to a very worthwhile organization. 

The Foster Care Support Foundation (www.fostercares.org) has already received several car and van loads full of gently used children’s clothing and gear and will again be the recipient of any unsold items after the school’s spring sale which runs from January 30 until Feb 2. 

"Our children are so fortunate to have loving homes to grow up in, and I’m so glad that we are able to help an organization that finds such homes for children from difficult backgrounds," said Shana Cooper, one of the moms diligently working on the upcoming sale.

Whether it’s knowing that they are helping their children’s preschool bottom line, providing a service for the community, getting to bargain shop or helping a foster child, these parents are excited and happy working on Kids Closet at Winters Chapel. Now that’s the formula for a successful school fundraiser!

Interested in selling with or shopping at Kids Closet? Visit the website at www. Kidsclosetwinterschapel.com.