Fundraising is a challenge that many extracurriculars at Park face yearly. With limited budgets and growing expenses, student groups often have to come up with creative ways to raise money to keep their activities going instead of relying on the funds the school gives. Whether that’s selling coupon cards, flowers or tickets, it’s hard to raise the amount of money required to keep activities going smoothly.
Sophomore and member of Environmental Club Catherine Kotowski said even when funding is available through the school, accessing it can be difficult.
“Accessing (the) funding that the school gives us can be tricky because you need to be very specific about what you need the money for and then wait for the school to approve it,” Kotowski said. “I wish the school would prioritize some more club requests, or just speed up the process somehow, because it takes a long time and then we feel lost.”
Member of the set and prop crew for theater, sophomore Erin Eichten, said the cost of putting on a production can be one of the biggest hurdles at times. She said they have used many different methods of fundraising to raise money for their productions.
“I feel like we are stripped away from doing some shows due to them being too pricey, and it’s hard when we have a lower budget of money from the school this year, too,” Eichten said. “We did some fundraising (like) ‘Donuts with Dorothy’ for our fall musical, and then we had a raffle table during lunch for our latest show. Those have helped us raise money tremendously, but we still always seem short in some ways, but we make do with what we have.”
Environmental Club adviser Emily Rennhak said that while her students are full of ideas and motivation, their lack of resources and the rules around school funding slow the process down.
“There are a lot of rules and restrictions on where we can fundraise and where we can get our money from,” Rennhak said. “Sometimes it can be tricky when we’re such a small club because we have such exciting ideas on what we wanna do, but then it’s hard to actually do them.”
Kotowski said, despite some of the challenges fundraising poses, she remains optimistic about the future of Park’s clubs and the support they have received from the community.
“As a rising leader of the Environmental Club, I wanna keep making gardens, and I also am familiar with many people who are happy to donate to us,” Kotowski said. “Environmental Club doesn’t require many resources, but when we do, it’s nice to get help from our community, so we can keep making beneficial things for our school.”
Rennhak said that while their traditional restaurant fundraiser helps them, the most meaningful support has come from working with the city of St. Louis Park to make the pollinator garden dream come true.
“We’ve done fundraising at Parkway Pizza, but the most beneficial way we’ve fundraised is collaborating with the city of St. Louis Park, as they allowed us to make the pollinator garden,” Rennhak said. “This helped our club tremendously and also made us feel so accomplished. We hope to make a bigger pollinator garden that students can also access.”
