Sweet Deals: School Fundraising can be Healthy and Profitable

Fundraising can be Healthy and Profitable

Posted: 21 February 2007

Source:  CSPI, February 14, 2007 (http://www.cspinet.org/new/200702141.html)

(Abridged article)

WASHINGTON—Schools often rely on fundraisers to bridge budget gaps and help pay for athletic equipment, field trips, and supplies. But even though rates of childhood obesity have tripled in recent years, those fundraisers all too often rely on the sale of calorie-dense, low-nutrient junk food, according to a new report from the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). Fortunately, says the group, schools have a wide range of non-food and healthy-food fundraising options to choose from, and experience shows that these options can raise as much or even more money than junk-food sales.

"Health-conscious parents have a hard enough time without schools pressuring their children to buy even more junk food to help pay for their own education," said CSPI nutrition policy director Margo G. Wootan. "Why put parents in that position when there are perfectly good fundraisers that don’t jeopardize children's health?"

Unhealthy fundraising options that CSPI recommends avoiding include:

• Candy, cookie dough, doughnut, pizza, or pizza kit sales. These are among the most common school fundraisers, but enlisting school children to sell junk-food sends them the wrong message about the importance of healthy eating, according to CSPI. Junk foods are even included in the catalogs of many gift-wrap programs.

• Fast-food fundraisers. McDonald’s, Chuck E. Cheese’s, Little Caesars, Krispy Kreme, Burger King, and other chains have school fundraising nights, gift cards, and other programs that encourage families to spend money at the chains. The restaurants enjoy the marketing and the opportunity to bring in more customers on weeknights, but most of the menu options at these chains undermine children’s health.

"It is time to junk the junk food fundraisers," said Wootan. "As a society we are sure to spend more on the resulting diet-related diseases than we could ever hope to raise selling junk food in schools."