Donating to your next school PTA event: A helpful guide

For my sins, I am a member of the school PTA.

It comes from a largely selfish place; I generally sit on my arse all day giving nothing back to humanity, so it’s a chance to feel like a useful human being. Also I want to do nice things for my kids and let’s face it, they won’t happen if no one volunteers.

Anyway, I’m not a full-on organisey person, more of a minion, but I’m happy to rock up to meetings and help set things up.

One of the jobs I help out with is to sort through the donations that we get during the pre-fair donation days. You probably know the drill; the kids usually get to wear their own clothes to school, and in return parents have to donate something; cakes, sweets, booze, toys… And then the lucky PTA get to sort through the boxes and determine which stall things should go on.

Here is a simple guide to donating to your school PTA donation days.

(These examples aren’t all from my own school, obviously. However they’re definitely all genuine!).

1) Make sure it’s in date

If it’s food or drink, then check the date first. I know in the olden days the Harvest Festival was where your mum got rid of all the things in the cupboard that were probably on the turn, but times have changed now, there are risk assessments and all sorts of shit to comply with.

It is an AWFUL SHAME when people donate a box of chocolates that goes off, say, a day before the Christmas fair, and the PTA have to eat them. A real damn shame.

2) PG only, please

This is a fair for primary school kids, we’re talking 4 year olds. Exercise a little common sense. That means no risque card games, no chocolate body paint, and definitely no, er… marital aids.

3) Handmade is fine, shop bought is also fine

I’m fairly sure that no PTA in the land will condemn you for not having time to lovingly bake rock cakes for the cake stall. Feel no shame in popping to Co-Op and buying a pack (I never have).

4) It is entirely acceptable to pass on things from one fair to the next

No one wants that low alcohol fizzy rose and that’s A-OK, it can be recycled ad infinitum until eventually someone either drinks it (shudder) or gifts it on somewhere else and it goes to a different school.

This tickled me; “There’s a bottle of limited edition J20 doing the rounds for PTA bottle tombola stalls – cranberry cinnamon and glitter. First spotted in 2012 and still going,”

5) Make sure it’s sealed

No, no one wants that bottle of Blue Arctic you’ve had in your cupboard since 2001 even if you have only drunk one shot out of it.

Why not take it along with you to a house party and poison the people there with it instead?

It actually breaks my heart having to pour alcohol down the sink, so don’t do it. You don’t want to break our hearts.

6) …And has something in it

Empty bottles seem to be a fairly common donation for the bottle tombola – having to specifically state that means bottles full of stuff is a little depressing.

7) Sealed products from multipacks or gift sets are most welcome

There are only so many body scrubs that you need, for instance, but if it’s still sealed then donate it and someone else will be glad of it/re-gift it/donate it back next year.

8) Half used ones are not

I mean you’d think this would go without saying but a half-squeezed tube of hand cream is not an appropriate thing to donate to anywhere.

9) Remember, it’s a prize

That means someone needs to want to win it. It’s not a charity shop; the PTA don’t want to be washing and scrubbing things, they have enough shit to do.

Would your child want to win some dirty Lego bricks or a teddy bear that stinks of smoke?

The serious bit

On the subject of donation days… Yes, it might appear to be a pain in the arse and that schools are constantly asking for this, that and a kidney, but as far as the PTA go if there are no donations, there are no Christmas or summer fairs.

If there are no fairs, there is no way to raise money for things like playground improvements, and – you might be surprised to learn – even basic essentials like BOOKS because the Tories have wiped out school funding to the point where it’s not unheard of for head teachers to go cap in hand to PTAs to ask for money. Which is shit. And parents constantly whinging about being asked to spend a quid on a bar of chocolate to allow the money to be made isn’t helpful.

The alternative is that every parent sticks 20 quid in an envelope at the start of the year, and the kids don’t get the fun of seeing Father Christmas, or winning on the tombola, or throwing wet sponges at their teachers.

Anyway, if the PTA are giving up basically weeks of their lives to put this together, for your kids, they really don’t want to hear about how it’s unfair to expect a donation. If you genuinely cannot do it, don’t. No one is going to turn up at your door demanding cake with menaces. If you can’t supply stuff – no judgement, our circumstances are all different – perhaps offer an hour or two of your time to help on the day instead.

Just don’t complain about it like they’ve asked for a pint of your blood because it makes them crazy and they’re already sleep deprived because they’ve been up til midnight baking cakes, wrapping lucky dip presents, trying to work out how to decorate the grotto and folding raffle tickets to raise money for YOUR CHILDREN. OK?

Glad we’re agreed on that.