Our Car Wash
By tammyr
@tammyr (5945)
Etowah, Tennessee
July 24, 2007 1:50pm CST
We are troop 838, Junior Girl scouts of Moccasin Bend council. We are going to Canada to "The International River Crossing" This is a long way from us in Southern Tennessee, so we need a lot of money to make this happen. We decided to do Car Washes, and private donations to raise the money.
We had our first car wash over the weekend and thought you might want to know how we did!We started at 8:00 am.and worked till 4 pm. We washed a lot of cars but we did not keep a count on them. Counting the $4 I got as a donation tonight we made almost $170.!!! Of course that is before supplies, but still good. I do not have the expenses in front of me but off the top of my head, I think it was about $30. So about $140 profit! That is pretty good I think. We tried to sell fresh squeezed lemonade, but we did not do so well with that so we will not do that again! The girls did well until the end. They were all hot and tired and it was time to stop.
The friends at Family Dollar and myself, put in a 13 hour day. After the Car wash I took Tara and a friend to Bible school and then I went in and straightened shelves, and assisted customers off the clock. About 6:30 I clocked in and we packed up all the items that did not sell, Wait... Did I tell you that John, our District Manager, brought in a U-Haul full of marked down merchandise, 4 tents, tables and had a concession stand from Coke brought in?They sold hot dogs, chips and Cokes. The local Police were there with their anti-drug program, DARE. It was a huge event and we will do it every other weekend until Sept. 15th.
The troop may be able to do the concession stand. I called council and they said they could approve it for the fund raising. So if the girls are game, and a few parents are willing to run the stand with the girls, we will do it a few times. That will up our profit margin a bit!Have any of you ever had to raise a large amount of money for an event? What did you do? How did you do?
And if not, the we can discuss the great time the girls had washing cars, or how completely worn out we were at the end of the day!!! LOL
1 person likes this
2 responses
@royal52gens (5488)
• United States
4 Aug 07
My troop (Troop # 250) is looking forward to your troop coming to Michigan. Our troop is a mixture of Junior and Senior scouts. We know that traveling for that kind of distance can be wearing on the nerves.
I have 5 tents that will be set up in the back yard for you. We have access to more tents if needed. We will have the 10 X 20 covered awning set up also. Your girls should have plenty of room to stretch their legs. The house, the deck, the patio, the covered awning area, the lawn chairs, the trampoline and 10 acres to run on. After an evening of relaxing and good food, all of us will head to Canada.
We will go to Marine City and ride the ferry across the river. Then we will hike about 1 and 1/2 miles to the park. Anything we take has to fit in our backpacks.
The International River Crossing is a huge picnic. American and Canadian scouts come together and spend an afternoon getting to know each other. Most years, there are about 4,000 scouts in attendance. It is an awesome sight. This is the 40th year that this picnic has been held. The girls have an activity called "SWAPS". SWAPS are watchamacallits or items that can be attached or pinned. They are small hand-made tokens of friendship that the girls swap or trade with each other. This activity teaches the girls to be courteous to others and helps the shy girls to meet people. Even the Leaders get in on this activity. I have a hat that I wear every year. By the end of the day, my hat will be covered with hat pins.
My most special hat pin is a small black frying pan with two eggs and two strips of bacon in it. It even has a handle. (disaster! I just noticed that one of the eggs is missing) Well, it is old. Then there is my fake Krackel candy bar. This is one way to recycle the packaging from those little candies.
1 person likes this
@royal52gens (5488)
• United States
6 Aug 07
I am sorry there was a mix up at this car wash. Don't give up. Re-group. Have a quickie meeting and use the opportunity to re-commit the girls and their parents to the project. Let them know how close you are to the goals that have been set out. Lots of encouragement and positive reinforcement. Schedule a meeting an hour before the car wash is to start. If someone can not dedicate the whole day, encourage them to give at least one hour of their time to the project.
@Fishmomma (11658)
• United States
24 Jul 07
That is great news. My only suggestion do a car wash and bake sale at the same time. This helped my daughters troop pay for air fare for their trip. The young women did the baking and the food sold quite well. People want to help when they can see that the young women put in time baking the items. Good luck raising the money.
@tammyr (5945)
• Etowah, Tennessee
25 Jul 07
We are going to get the concession stand and will sell hot dogs, chips, cokes and some of the girls will make homemade cookies and brownies. The bad thing about a car wash and bake sale is the chance of food getting wet from the overspray on the cars. The girls are learning how to make the water go where they want it, but tend to not care where it goes after it hits the cars. Everything got wet on our first wash!LOL
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