How to save up for our pinning ceremony:

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Specializes in ortho.

Our class graduates in 2015 and we have two years to save up and have a really awesome graduation.

Does anybody have any tips on what to do?

We have plans to fundraise about 2-3 times per semester. Our BSN program is only 2 years.

Any fundraising ideas or financial advice are appreciated.

Thank you!

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Specializes in ICU.

Our class is selling TShirts, collects dues, sells snacks, and just had a chick fil a spirit night.

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I would definitely do fundraising - bake sales, garage sales, food/restaurant sales, etc. It's great you are thinking of this now.

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Our nursing class voted to pay dues every semester. No one was forced to pay but 99% of them did pay. A lot of people didnt want to spend time doing fundraisers. A lot of us just wanted to focus on passing. Nursing school is so busy & hectic.

It worked for my class. But good luck! And you're going to love nursing. I graduated 2 years ago & have been working in ICU every since. I LOVE IT!

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If you do fundraising do simple stuff like selling candy bars or wrapping paper with Christmas coming up. Think of things people always need at affordable prices and you'll sell enough quantity to make a lot of money. One fundraiser that is a bit harder (it arrives frozen and you have 4 hours to deliver) is little Cesar's pizza kits. We did this twice a yr for our youth football program and made thousands of dollars each time... They have more than pizza too, it's actually really good. Good luck with whatever you choose!

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Specializes in NICU, ICU, PICU, Academia.

Your school does not provide a graduation for it's students? I've never heard of such a thing!

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Which school do you go to? A bachelors in 2 years?

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Our SNA came into class the other day and asked for some of us freshmen to join and help come up with new ideas for fundraisers for our pinning ceremony. I had already been bouncing around the idea of a cake auction and they loved it. Maybe that would work for you.

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Specializes in Oncology.

People that wanted to go had to buy tickets. Our SNA pitched in a bit, and I'm sure the school itself did a bit too.

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Your school does not provide a graduation for it's students? I've never heard of such a thing!

Our school provided the general graduation ceremony where you receive your diploma, but did NOT pay for the nursing class' pinning ceremony and we had to raise the money ourselves for that and our senior luncheon if we elected to have one. That being said, this is what we did:

Nursing dues were like $25 or something, and when we paid them as first years, half went to our account, the other half went to the senior account. When we paid them as seniors, all of it went to our account. Every year around Halloween we sponsor a blood drive and bake sale that the first years are responsible for, and all the money raised from that goes to the first year's account.

My class sold t-shirts and wreaths at Christmas time since one of the girls in the class had a connection. If you have a Barnes and Noble in your area, contact them about wrapping around the holidays. They let non-profit groups wrap for donations, and over the course of 3 days we made almost $1000. People LOVE nursing students as most people either are a nurse, know a nurse and/or are related to one, or have had a good experience with one, and several people gave us donations without having us wrap anything, or donated $20 when we wrapped a book.

Our other big fundraiser was a 30 day raffle. We got local businesses and such to donate items or gift cards and services and put it all on a calendar for a month, in our case we did March Madness to coincide with the basketball craze around here. People paid $10 for a raffle ticket that gave them the opportunity to win any item on that calendar, and we got some pretty sweet items donated. It was a bit of work to get together, but (almost) the entire class pitched in to get items donated.

With most of our fundraisers we gave the first years the option of participating so that they would receive half of the money from what they sold, i.e. they would get $5 from every raffle ticket sold, and the senior class got $5.

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Ortho, ASC.

"We have plans to fundraise about 2-3 times per semester"

Seriously?? Trying to wrap my mind around taking that much time and energy to fundraise for a pinning ceremony, each and every semester.

I don't mean to rain on your parade, but after a lifetime of nursing, I would strongly advise that you and your classmates focus your energies on studying, test-taking et al, rather than fund-raising for a party.

Your energy is so much more effective when directed toward your curriculum and clinicals than the party after.

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We had a ceremony with punch and lunch but we did not pay - public school here. Just weird that you'd have to pay.

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