Cupcake Kids - part 2

Last year I blogged that we were going to have a Cupcake Kids bake sale.  You can read that post here that explains the WHAT and the WHY of having a sale, but I was not so good about following up with pics of our sale and how it all went.  We are getting ready for our SECOND Cupcake Kids sale this year so I figured it was about time to share some pics and get people thinking about getting their kids involved in this great project this year. 


So many generous people donated LOTS of cupcakes!

The kids had a great time drumming up business from passersby.



We also had BeadforLife Jewelry for sale.

How much money did we raise? To tell you the truth I had to look it up because I couldn't remember. I thought it was like $200. We made $435 for the imprisoned children of Uganda. Selling cupcakes! We sold another $400 in BeadforLife Jewelry. It is not about the money though. I am sure there were bigger sales than ours. It was about getting kids involved in helping out others. It was about raising awareness in our community.

And in that respect it was a big success.

Looking forward to our sale again this year and to change it up a bit we are going to offer baskets made by Ugandan grannies from the Nyaka AIDS Orphans Project.   If you are interested in hosting a Cupcake Sale of your own, please visit The Cupcake Kids website for more info. and to register your sale.   Please keep in mind your sale can be as simple as a little table with cupcakes at the end of your driveway.  Every little bit helps and what a great lesson for our kids in giving to others.

Good Little Things

It's been awhile since I featured my favorite etsy shops on the blog here.  I continue to love those shops with the addition of a new favorite, Good Little Things.  I love shopping from etsy for the one of a kind items and connections with the artists/crafters.  Those things in itself make shopping from etsy purposeful spending. 

Good Little Things sells beautifully handcrafted, one of a kind shoes and jewelry.  I never would have found this shop though had it not been for the good little things this shop is doing for Sole Hope.  For each $15 flower ring sold, $10 goes to Sole Hope (and we know what $10 means to Sole Hope, but if you don't, that means one pair of shoes to a child in need).  

I ordered two rings, one for my daughter and one for her friend.  And although the rings were custom made, they were completed and shipped to me quickly. 

Sole Hope Ring from Good Little Things.
They also offer a smaller ring,
which I think is just adorable. 
I may have to order one of those too!

Truth be told, even though I ordered this for my daughter, I have been wearing this ring a lot too!

Equal Exchange

If you have kids in school or even just know any school aged kids you probably get sick of the endless fundraisers.  As an active PTA parent, I know these are annoying but a much needed way for schools to raise money for field trips and other things that are considered "extras" in times of tight school budgets.  While brainstorming how could we make these more purposeful (cause let's face it, a lot of this stuff is overpriced JUNK) I heard that my daughter's yearly fundraiser was going to be FAIR TRADE and it nearly stopped me in my tracks.  I eagerly volunteered to handle the fundraiser since I feel so passionate about fair trade.  The name of the fundraiser they used is Equal Exchange.  Having never heard of them before I did a little research about them first.  Were they for real?  And yes, they are for real.

Working with Equal Exchange was positive.  There was excellent and responsive communication and they have an easy spreadsheet to talley orders and create your order to the company.  The only difficult thing was that the orders do not come sorted by student seller as some fundraising companies do.  This just means planning for time to go through and sort each order and getting some other parents to come help.

I think a great way to increase sales with this fundraiser would be to partner it with education on what Fair Trade is and why it is important.  Not only may that help increase sales but it may introduce people to Fair Trade that have never even heard of it before.

Some of the items available from Equal Exchange.

So, if you are looking for a fundraiser idea for your group, they are a good option to consider. They sell everything from chocolates, coffee and wrapping paper to unique gift items from Ten Thousand Villages.   http://www.equalexchange.coop/equal-exchange-fundraising