does anyone have any good , cheap ideas for fund raiser for volunteer fire department?.?

Question

ideas on food to sell at a festival, or monthly at fire hall.

we are a very very small department, in the middle of no where.... very low budget to work with... no major cities close enough to us to stop traffic.....(middle of NOOO where) need cheap cheap ideas.

also as far as fireMEN go, we have very few and all extremely married and very odd. lol... but we have very few,, over half of dept.. is female like me.

Answer 1

Here are a few of things that have always been highly successful with volunteer groups I have been a part of:

If the food is part of another event and not a fundraiser on it's own, barbecued hotdogs and burgers are a great handheld food that always sells well. Coolers of canned pop is a great accompaniment. (Maple Leaf usually donates the dogs for free)

Bring in a couple of deep freezers (big freezer chests) and acquire large drums of ice cream from your local ice cream supplier (Scotsburn/Brookfield have always donated the ice cream to us) and sell single and double scoop ice cream cones. (I find the funky flavours always sell best!)

For food fund raisers on their own, potato salad platters (sit down or delivered to the home), tea and strawberry shortcake, selling seasonal fruit pies (apple or blueberry), baked bean and brown bread suppers... have also always done well.

Good luck to you!

Answer 2

Most volunteer fire halls around here have carnivals. The carnival manager brings the games and rides and the operators to run them while the firemens' families cook hot dogs, hamburgers, popcorn, cakes and pies and have raffles and wheels of chance to gamble etc.

The better the weather, the more money is to be made. They usually run Thursday and Friday nights 6 to11 and noon to 11 on Saturday and 2
to 8 on Sunday.

Thousands are made very easily if everyone helps out. There is just about no risk to the fire department. Make sure to get the correct permits and special liability insurance for the event. The carnival manager does this for a living, so he knows what you will need!

For a one night affair, a spaghetti dinner is
almost 70% profit.

For a weekend event a bull and oyster roast
or a shrimp roast are big winners. Get it catered and let their staff do the food work while you do the gambling work and the selling of the beer and mixed drinks.

Local taverns usually donate some liquor if asked, and you can sell tickets for a whiskey and wine basket. Always send thank you letters to the bars that give you donations. You can ask a printer to donate the tickets and he will probably do that to, if you ask and let him put "tickets donated by xyz Co." on them on the reverse side.

The big problem is to have security personnel
to roam the grounds to stop kids from running
and endangering others. You may want to ask permission from the Fire Department to keep your engines out of service if possible. You always run the risk of having a multi-alarm fire and having to put them in-service. Therefore, you will need more adult bodies to run the event, if the fireman have to leave. Never, ever let teenagers be in charge of or handle money!


DON'T FORGET THE WHEELS and 50-50's!

Answer 3

I, too, am on a volunteer fire department in a tiny town in the middle no where with no major cities remotely close by. I had to wonder for a minute if you lived in my town! Haha. This is what we do, several times a year. We hold "Penny Raffles."

We find a local business that is willing to donate something of value for us to raffle off, or the department can purchase something. Sometimes we have a nice chainsaw, sometimes a hunting rifle, or a weekend vacation. Whichever we do, we set a display up in a local gathering spot, in our case, the local bar, which is known as "Station Two" as a joke. But it sits on a highway, so we get travelers buying tickets, also.

We buy a roll of 500 raffle tickets, separate them all and stick them in a coffee can. Patron's at the place can buy a ticket by picking one ticket out of the can and paying the price on it. We use the last three numbers on the ticket, so people are paying anywhere from one cent to five dollars for their chance to win, depending on which ticket they draw. Naturally, everybody wants to say they won on a one cent ticket, so those that pull low ones will very often buy several more.

The tickets sell fairly quickly, sometimes within a couple of weeks, and we have our profit. Do the math, your department can make some good change.

And good luck, there are some great ideas posted here.

Answer 4

For the one who stated it will be extraordinary to have over 30 diferent extinguishers on your dwelling let me say this. There are four varieties of fireplace extinguishers. Every is for a diferent type of fireside. If you lived in a large house and had a few constructions around your private home it must examine what number of fireplace extinguishers you may have. Good I hunt, just as there are distinctive forms of fires there are diferent matters to hunt. There's small game. That covers rabit, squirrel, birds, exc. Then it goes up to medium sport. That is dear and an assortment of animals of identical dimension. Then there is gigantic recreation. That is undergo, moose, elk, exc. Then you may have a self defence point. Just as there are diferent kinds of extinguishers there is a diferent form of gun for these purposes. A 22 or shotgun for small animals, then amuthing that can be utilized to kill a endure goes to kill an expensive. If you happen to used anything better than a 22 on small game you might to find nothing of the sport. The satisfactory guns for medium recreation are on the whole something from 30-30 and up. Uniquely there may be also one more factor you must look at. No longer all guns are the identical. 30-30 is shorter variety then 30-06. Identical bullet diameter however the bullets are visually diferent. A 30-30 is extra round on the tip than a 30-06. That is for brush. The 2 feel distinctive for every different when the trigger is pulled to. The only massive game gun i will think of like the 30-30 is a gun known as the British 303. It used to be a bolt motion rifle used by the British army in WW1 and WW2. It used to be Delors from the navy within the 60s. Similar bullet to a 30-30 however competent of going a thousand yards. If i am looking over an open area i do not wish to use it though. I want a circular that is pointy. As for self defence. That all goes all the way down to what an individual likes fine.

Answer 5

Let's see...
Big kettle of chili...yummy. Paper bowl are more expensive so you can just serve it in a styrofoam cup with a spoon...will stay hotter than way anyway...next to it you could sell hotdogs...they go well with chili. Probably get $5-7 if you sold them both together! Big profit! Since it's hot out- how 'bout something fun for the kids. Get a few big buckets and fill them with water balloons...then have some of the fireman loan there rubber boots.
Line the boots up and have the kids try to throw a water balloon into it...If that's to messy...give them a ping-pong ball...Kinda like throwing a ping-pong ball into the goldfish bowls. Then they can win a little something. Also how bout selling tickets to kids...and have them be able to sit way on top of the firetruck...you can take polleroid pictures of the kids/and parents up their...That would be really exciting for a child..getting his picture takin' with a firehat on sitting next to a fireman or the firedog or even holding part of the hose!
Idea for the ladies...pin the tale on the fireman...or pin the hose on the fireman....water hose would be more appropriate than the firemans hose! hahaha!

Lets see...........a rope-pull with two teams...but use an old fire hose to pull on! One teams the firemen the others the kids and adults that buy a ticket!

Instead of ty'n two peoples legs to each other...one gets in one legs of a firemans pants and another person gets in the other side and has to race against others. Whoever gets to the firehose finish line wins!

Welp....hope some of those work for you !
Good luck on your fundraiser...I'd go if I lived close!
SmileyCat : )

Answer 6

I like funnel cakes the batter is very cheap to make and fried dough with poweder sugar in crazy shapes really sells(all you need is a frier and funnel look online for good recipes that are cheap. Also a similiar thing is the Beignet which is a french donut sold in New Orleans at such place as the Cafe du Monde. I have found they can be made from generic biscuit dough in a can rolled out with a rolling pin into a square shape and deep fried then sprinkled of course with powdered sugar and or cinnamon. As a side item these are sold here with coffee containing chicory but they're good with regular coffee too. Coffee is ridiculously marked up at places like starbucks and you can buy starbucks in bulk at places like Sam's Club. When I took a marketing class in college on resturants. I discovered numerous studies prove that humans prefer fatty foods and when resturants increase their fat content sales go up. These two ideas easily exploit that and I have sold them for fund raisers.

Answer 7

One way to make a lot of money would be a fireman auction. Put up signs around town and let people bid on the firemen. Whoever wins gets the man for a predetermined amount of time. Usually 3-4 hours. The bidder then would be able to do what they want to. (Nothing illigal or immoral) Such as go to dinner, have them mow the lawn, or hang pictures, or handyman work around the house. The men would have a ball and you would be rolling in the dough!!!

Answer 8

baked goods always nice, just have a list of what is in what, for the allergic people. homemade crafts are good too, ornate items are nice, but usually not cheap to make. A pancake feed, charge a fee and people get breakfast, same with chili or anything of the sort. You could organize a bbq or a picnic and charge a fee for the food. have games to win small prizes to attract more people, but when you have anything like this always set out a few donation jars located around the area, especially where ever anyone has to purchase anything, but charge say 2.50 for something and when change is given lots of people will just throw the extra .50 in one of the jars. large garage sale, auction (donated items work best). there are lots of things to do to raise money for you......GOOD LUCK>>>

Answer 9

Have a photographer come in and provide family photo packages that a portion of prceeds go to the fire dept . All of your coverage area could be informed by local radio or local paper add schedule ahead and keep it as a regular thing may twice a year .

Answer 10

this is what we do here in my little town ....we have our local butcher donate packages of meat usually about five packages....such as 2 steaks 4 chichen breast ...maybe 8 porkchops sometimes when we make enough money we will help pay for the meat ....(if he lets us) then we go down to our local bar and we have 5 meat draws ....first draw is at 6 and the last one is at 8 ...the 8 oclock draw is usally like a big ham ....or special occ..it could be a turkey ....we sell the tickets an $5.00 an arm length....we have raised lots of money doing this ....we firemen just take turns ....hint hint mostly women u could sell LOTS!!!! GOOD LUCK and have fun!!!