I was welcomed back home from work yesterday with the kids waving their school brochures for the annual fund raising event. The catalog was filled with handmade artifacts, holiday paraphernalia, delectables cookies and chocolates and a myriad other items to choose from. The older one claimed she wanted to fund raise her best this year since she wouldn’t have any more opportunities to in Junior high and High school. The little one didn’t want to miss out on the fun ‘coz he claimed this was his first year fund raising. While I quietly absorbed all they were saying and groaning meekly that this meant walking the neighborhood and requesting them to buy things out of the catalog.
My mom is a wonderful salesperson and can market anything you put in her hands while offering her a lucrative benefit. She has attempted a slue of things while we were growing up. We always claimed that if her parents had the foresight to give her a decent education and had she been encouraged by her in-laws, she would have turned out to be a spirited and successful entrepreneur. Unfortunately for her neither happened and all she was able to pull off were the occasional business opportunities to keep her skills honed in. It is indeed very sad that none of us, the fruit of her womb carried this gene down. Old sister is the one who is now displaying mom’s marketing skills with the jewelery that she delicately & tastefully creates.
Where are am going with this whole thing? Given that I absolutely suck at selling anything (buying is a whole different story though:)), these fund raising brochures are not my cup of tea. I loathe to ask friends to pitch in because, given that they fall in my age group they have their kids in similar schools too and have their own fund raising efforts to deal with. Since we live so far away from family, there is not much family we can tap into to buy the items offered in said catalog. I hate to bring such things to work and put it on my desk for fear of being of judged for using my network for personal favors.
I remember back in the days when we were in school , we did a fair amount of fund raising for charitable institutions with the award for the highest amount being certificates autographed by famous cricketers of the day. I remember walking the streets and requesting all and sundry to offer us a few cents/dollars for a noble cause. That I felt was a tad easier given that most people we went to didn’t have kids in their house doing similar stuff. I hate to walk Meg to strangers in the community requesting them to choose from catalogs and impose upon them. It’s probably all me but like I said, that is who I am.
All this effort in return for what. Meg has her heart set on this little monkey alarm that you sleep with that starts squealing at the said hour. The only way to shut it is to slam it against a wall. She needs to raise $45 to get this squeaky monkey. Raul of course has his own favorite toy that he would like to get from this fund raising effort. I tactfully suggested to them that this is an activity they need to work with dad on. It’s a guilt free move for me considering I bear the brunt of doing all else for them as in homework help, carting them to classes, packing their lunch and all such mundane things and mainly since I hate doing this thing.
Knowing dad, he will probably easily wiggle out of this in the nicest possible way. Backup plan is to give them a certain value from our pockets and not have them walk the streets to fund raise. It goes into the school development and maintanance, similar to what we do as alumnus to our alma mater. But for now as they wait for their dad’s feedback, they like typical kids are dreaming of squealing monkey alarms et al.
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What kind of Flower are you?
“Mischief is your middle name, but your first is friend. You are quite the prankster that loves to make other people laugh.”
