Fund Raising, A New Low

I've ranted about fund raising before, particularly for the middle school. I *thought* it was at it's lowest with the whole you must sell 8 items in order to attend the school wide party.

But I was wrong. Oh so very, very wrong.

The middle school kicked it up to a whole new level of evil. It turns out that at the start of the fund raiser a child is secretly selected as the mystery student. The identity of the mystery student is revealed at the close of the fund raiser. Both the kids and the parents are kept in the dark. The mystery student "wins" $100, but only if the student had sold five fund raiser items.

And guess who was the mystery student.

That's right, it was Jake.

Since he sold bupkis, he didn't get the money.

My poor boy last night was very sad about his lost riches. I was furious.

I had tossed the fund raiser packet shortly after Jake brought it home. He understood how I felt and agreed that the catalog had nothing to offer us.

I know why they did this, it is to improve participation. But it is so very wrong to tell a child "Hey you won! but you don't get the money because your parents didn't want to buy more junk."

I hate our middle school's fund raisers. I'll do the band stuff, but I'm writing off the school.