By Nia Berry
Staff Writer
Snacks are everywhere at SLA, from pretzels to hot chocolate to candy. All this in hope of fundraising for the various events and organizations within the school.
To raise money for their tickets, many upperclassmen at Science Leadership Academy have been going around school selling assorted chocolates, holiday candy grams and snacks in order to fund raise for Senior and Junior proms. These campaigns are organized by Spanish teacher Mark Bey, who is also the social coordinator at SLA.
However, these students are not the only vendors within the school trying to fund raise for a special event.
The cheerleading team, the Liverpool trip, Students Run Philly Style, and many more other groups all trying to sell to the fewer than 500 students in the school, leaving very little room for profit and success in fundraising for Mr. Bey and his team.
Mr. Bey believes that the fundraising is key to the success of proms at SLA. “
The School District doesn’t pay for these events, ya’ll do and everyone should have a chance to be a part of them,” he said.
However, he acknowledges that lack of funding for all events squeezes the school.
“International trips cost a lot, and fundraising in a small school like this is too much! That’s something the district should give some money towards.”
The process of fundraising over the years has had it’s challenges and success due to the size of the school. The most common fundraising tactic used within the school is food. The selling of candy grams, pretzels, hot chocolate, and other snacks initially resulted in a booming profit until the school store was opened. The store, located on the second floor near the office, also sells snacks and treats, and raises money for SLA’s Home and School organization.
Though most students look to the school store for their source of a more diverse choice in snaking, the school store has an irregular schedule, which can create conflict with other fundraisers.
In order to help manage sales, some fundraising events have been assigned specific days. For instance, the scheduling for pretzels sales has been back and forth between ILP Coordinator Jermey Spry and History teacher Matt Baird on Fridays to fund raise for student run and girls soccer.
Just recently, Spry relinquished his Friday spot to Girl’s Soccer after netting the quota of about $300 he needed for running supplies for the Student Run team.
Spry also doesn’t think that the pretzel sales are the best way to go.
“They don’t yield that much money,” he said. “Pretzels cost like $21 a box and only sell for 50 cents.”
Regardless of the little profit made by pretzel sales, Baird finds it a reasonable way to fund raise for members on his soccer teams who can not necessarily afford the equipment they need.
Though they do not have a set goal for how much they want to fund raise for, the girl’s soccer team is expecting to order new labeled jerseys and socks that will cost about $50 a player.