About 5 years ago in our middle school home room classes (we call them access classes) we decided to have a little fund raising contest. We gave each group of students $100 and they came up with ways to raise money for the charity of their choice. It was around valentines day, and I had seen a flyer for a company that would send you surveys to give to your students. They would take the answers and do a little match.com thing where it said who you were compatible with.
The kids liked that idea, but we decided we could do it all ourselves and cut out the middle man, so they came up with a survey, and I had a high school student write a computer program to find out who each person was similar to and different from. We had everyone fill out the surveys, entered them into a spreadsheet (400+ surveys with 120+ questions each), ran the program and printed our “Buddy Lists.”
It was like printing money. We made 6 different cards for each person and charged $1.00 each and also offered all 6 for the bargain price of $5.00. We made around $1,600.00 and have been doing it each year since. We’ve given money to Hurricane Victims, Tsunami victims, Children’s Hospitals and Seminary Students.
Every year I forget to take pictures, so I never write about it. For the last few years we haven’t made as much money. I’m kinda hoping that we don’t break $1000.00 this year, so I can suggest we take a few years off.