Team Fundraising Ideas That Ooze with Holiday Spirit

Crowd Pleasing Concession Food and Spirit Gear

Everyone knows fans like a little something to satisfy that rumble in their tum when they’re out giving their favorite team a whole lot of enthusiastic spirit. And you know that hosting a concession stand can help fluff up your pockets with a few extra-much needed fundraising dollars for your school’s student organization. So here are a few ways to PEP up your concession stand and please the crowd with these delicious tummy-loving and spirit-rumbling favorites.

 
Getting’ Diggy With It

Simple Crowd Cheers You Can Lead

Nothing gets the crowd at a game more pumped up and excited about the action than cheers, especially cheers that everyone knows, that can be performed almost instantly during any part of the game, and that are simple enough to get the most amount of people in the crowd involved. Here are five chants that are classics and have been used across the nation at many different events.

Here We Go (Team Name) Here We Go!

This is a cheer that can be used for any sport. It lets the team know that you believe in them and know they can win. The cheer can be performed regardless of whether the team is winning or losing. If they’re winning, it lets them know that they can finish the game with a win. If they’re losing, it will give them the confidence and inspiration to come back and win, because they know that their fans have their backs. A good idea is to hold up

Pep Rally Rouser Ideas – Decorate & Make Noise!

Decorate for a Semi-Formal Theme Dance

Game Night Homecoming Theme Ideas

Don’t let this Homecoming drag on into the night. Keep the guests active and entertained with a game night theme!

Size It Up

Instead of cluttering up the room with tables and chairs to put board games on, why not simply make the guests pawns in the game? Take classic board games and make them life-sized! Checkers, chess, and parcheesi are all classic board games and are easy to set up and learn. For some more complicated games, however, try life-sized monopoly or the game of life (for those guests who want some intellectual aspects to their larger-than-life games). Games like these keep the guests moving and having fun all night long.

Heave Ho!

Host a tug-of-war competition! Set-up is as easy as a rope and some mats. Have your guests face off against each other to claim eternal glory as the strongest team in the school. To have everyone get involved, build a tournament bracket of all the guests. This makes winning even more glorious!

Relay Some Fun

An event that has been repeated for years is the relay race. Relay races encourage cooperation and teamwork without sacrificing fun and entertainment. Some popular ideas include balancing an egg on a spoon that is in their mouths, having a blindfolded person be guided through an obstacle course by someone who isn’t blindfolded, and having an activity at a station and having the person complete the activity before moving on to another station. Encourage school unity with relay races that get guests to interact with friends, acquaintances, and strangers alike.

Game Night Homecoming Theme Ideas

Don’t let this Homecoming drag on into the night. Keep the guests active and entertained with a game night theme!

Size It Up

Instead of cluttering up the room with tables and chairs to put board games on, why not simply make the guests pawns in the game? Take classic board games and make them life-sized! Checkers, chess, and parcheesi are all classic board games and are easy to set up and learn. For some more complicated games, however, try life-sized monopoly or the game of life (for those guests who want some intellectual aspects to their larger-than-life games). Games like these keep the guests moving and having fun all night long.

Heave Ho!

Host a tug-of-war competition! Set-up is as easy as a rope and some mats. Have your guests face off against each other to claim eternal glory as the strongest team in the school. To have everyone get involved, build a tournament bracket of all the guests. This makes winning even more glorious!

Relay Some Fun

An event that has been repeated for years is the relay race. Relay races encourage cooperation and teamwork without sacrificing fun and entertainment. Some popular ideas include balancing an egg on a spoon that is in their mouths, having a blindfolded person be guided through an obstacle course by someone who isn’t blindfolded, and having an activity at a station and having the person complete the activity before moving on to another station. Encourage school unity with relay races that get guests to interact with friends, acquaintances, and strangers alike.

Invite the Team to a Film Reel Party

After the big game, the team deserves a celebration. Invite them to something that’ll be the closer to a hard fought win: watching film from some of the best moments of the game! The team can relax, laugh, and have fun together at your film reel party.

Lights Out

Once the film is done, what is there left to do? Keep the lights off and have a glow party. Give out some

Organize a Zombie Event

This Halloween, host a Zombie dance for your school, club, reunion, or charity event to bring out the ghastly spirit in all of your guests.  They’ll laugh late into the night at this freaky, costumed event filled with eerie surprises, delicious food, and creative favors.  Find the white make up and bug eyes.  This is your Halloween to be a creative, one-of-a-kind zombie!

Entrance to the Dead

Before your guests can fully enjoy their new zombie statuses, they have to enter the zombie cemetery.  Every undead cemetery needs a spooky entrance.  Fashion a graveyard entrance that allows your guests to enter the party in a scary way.

Zombie Music

Wake up the dead with some chamber music, Micheal Jackson, Dead Heads, or The Nearly Deads:

Organize a Zombie Event

This Halloween, host a Zombie dance for your school, club, reunion, or charity event to bring out the ghastly spirit in all of your guests.  They’ll laugh late into the night at this freaky, costumed event filled with eerie surprises, delicious food, and creative favors.  Find the white make up and bug eyes.  This is your Halloween to be a creative, one-of-a-kind zombie!

Entrance to the Dead

Before your guests can fully enjoy their new zombie statuses, they have to enter the zombie cemetery.  Every undead cemetery needs a spooky entrance.  Fashion a graveyard entrance that allows your guests to enter the party in a scary way.

Zombie Music

Wake up the dead with some chamber music, Micheal Jackson, Dead Heads, or The Nearly Deads:

Rev Up for a Tailgating Party!

Football season is here and it’s time to blare the crowd pumping anthem, “Are You Ready For Some Football?” It is the time of year for team comradery to fill the nation. Teams are gearing up for a winning season and it’s time for you to show your team pride! Whether you enjoy cheering on your local high school team, favorite college, or NFL team, there is no better way to be a part of the action and to show your team spirit than with a game day tailgating party!

…And everyone knows one of America’s favorite pastimes begins with good food, good games, and good fun! You can rev up your tailgate party with some of these football tailgating ideas!

Tailgating Game Ideas:

• Mascot Stomp: Keep the kids at your party entertained with Mascot Stomp! All it takes are some latex balloons, string or ribbon, a sharpie marker, and a whistle and the kids will have a blast! Blow up some latex balloons in the opposing team’s colors. Let the kids draw their team logo or mascot onto the balloons. When they’ve finished, tie the balloons to their ankles and have them stand in a circle. Have someone blow the whistle to signal the start of the game and let the kids stomp on the balloons to pop the balloons and stomp the mascot. The last one standing with a balloon tied to their ankle wins.
• Pass the Ball: All you need are two mini footballs and people! Gather your fellow tailgate-goers into two team groups of seven or more people. Have each team stand in a straight line. Give each team a mini football. On your “go” the goal for each team is to pass the ball as quickly as they can without dropping it through the line without using their hands. Players can use their chins, elbows, feet or any creative way other than their hands to move the ball across the line of players. The first team to pass the ball through the line and back without dropping the ball wins. If you drop it, you have to start from the beginning again, so be strategic!

Fun Tailgating Ideas:

• Football Themed Photo Booth: Who wouldn’t love to capture a photo of the game day craziness? Make your celebration even more memorable with some fun football photo props! You can set up a fun, football themed photo booth at your tailgate party. Decorate a little stand with vinyl fringe and metallic fringe or hang a vinyl or metallic curtain as a backdrop to designate an area where you and your friends can go to have your picture taken. Have a football photo stand in, football photo prop, spirit wigs, jerseys, party beads, a helmet, football helmet eye blacks, a football, and boas at your tailgate photo booth so you and your friends can show a little of your silly side.
• Face and Body Art: You and your friends can also show off your creativity with a face painting table. Try dabbling with a face paint kit with sponge, football face painting stamp, or a #1 face painting stamp. Draw with face paint sticks or add face decals. Who knows, you and your friends might even end up painting yourselves into a whole group cheering crowd!
• Any way you party, don’t forget your fan faces!

Varsity Appreciation Night Ideas

The varsity players have been carrying the team all season, and it’s time to show them how appreciated they are! Varsity Appreciation Night is a time to recognize all varsity players on a team, whether they play almost every minute of every game or are more of a “sixth man” type of player. There are lots of fun ways to recognize your varsity players on Varsity Appreciation Night.

Set the Date

This special night should be set well in advance and clearly not on the night of a sporting event. How else would the team attend?  Take into consideration the other sports that multi-sport athletes might play. Don’t schedule the football Varsity Appreciation Night on the night of a wrestling match. Some of your varsity football players might also wrestle.

Pick a Location and Decorate

It’s probably easiest to hold the appreciation night in the school cafeteria. It would be easy

5 Contest Ideas for Choosing Your Next School Mascot

What do you do when your mascot graduates?  You have to choose someone new to wear the suit and go to all the games as your mascot, but how do you go about choosing?  Do you let the former mascot name a successor, or does the principal select the next one? You could use either of those options, or you could create a few fun contests and make a competition to find a new mascot.

When planning for the contests, you have to be creative.  Make them challenging and potentially embarrassing.  If you make the contests easy, many more students will get involved.  Making them slightly embarrassing is a way to whittle down the competition—even so, you’ll probably still have a lot of students.  Now, do you want to do one big contest or would you rather put together, say, three smaller contests?  This could depend on the amount of students who want to try out for the new mascot, but it’s a good way of eliminating a few contestants at a time.  Here a few fun ideas to weed the mascot competition down to a final few:

1. Talent Contest:  Have those who want to compete for the role of mascot sign up for a space in the talent show; they can sing, dance, tell jokes, perform magic tricks, or perform impressions.  Your panel of judges will be made up of a couple teachers and a couple parents, who then vote on the round of students who will remain in the competition.
2. Fundraiser Contest:  Split your remaining contestants into groups of 5 to 7 (don’t let them choose their teammates) and have each group choose a school department (drama, choir, band, etc.) and create a fundraiser.  By selecting the groups for the students, you’ll be challenging them to see who will work well with others, as cooperation is a big part of any team.  The top two teams will be the winners and have a chance to move on.
3. Costume Contest:  Because the mascot is always in a costume, challenge your mascot hopefuls to create a costume and wear it to school all day!  The costumes can be school-related or not, but they must be actual costumes!  Don’t allow the students to wear jeans, boots, and a leather jacket and claim they’re a “greaser.”  Those costumes should mean disqualification.
4. Field Day Contest:  Have your hopefuls participate in a fitness contest of sorts.  Set up a game of HORSE, followed by tossing horseshoes, a push-up contest, and one or two other field-day-related games.  This is where the competition heats up, because you’ll only be choosing five to continue on.
5. Spirit Contest:  Challenge your hopefuls to deck themselves out in school spirit gear!  They can decorate their cars, their lockers, their clothing, or themselves (temporary tattoos are a great way to show spirit), but they must be the most spirited student in order to win.

Encourage your students to show their school spirit during the mascot competition.  After all, being a school mascot is all about school spirit—something students always have!

Best Looking Homecoming Parade Floats

Does your high school have a parade during homecoming week?  Whether yes or no, why not put together a fun, friendly competition with the other high schools in your area?  Gather together and recruit a parent to drive the vehicle that will pull the parade float.  Then gather a group of students—a few representatives from each class, so all the students have a hand in decorating.  Find a trailer sturdy enough to hold your float and four students—one member of each class.  When you begin decorating, you must ask yourself a few questions: what do the memorable parade floats use as decorations?  What do the best-looking parade floats rely on?

Spirited Float Decorations

A good base for decorating your parade float is to obtain a book on how to build a parade float.  You’ll want to start with a decorating kit.  This will take care of your basic decorating needs for the trailer part of the float.  You’ll either want grass mats or scatter grass for the floor of your float.  Then, hang metallic fringe in your school colors around the bottom of your float.  Add bunches of balloons to the corners of your float—opposite colors in opposite corners.  Then, make a few sign using colored paper to decorate and Styrofoam letters and stars to get your message across.

Spirited Float Team

It’s also important to “decorate” your float team.  You can make t-shirts for them to wear, but you can also stock up on boas and temporary tattoos for your team members to wear.  Look for wigs for your spirited team members to wear, too. The more school spirit your students show, the better!  Also, what spirit float would be complete without pom-poms? Make sure your float members carry their pom-poms and noisemakers and let their spirit ring loudly during your homecoming parade!

The most important part of the equation that makes up a good parade float is the spirit that your float team portrays.  Without spirit in a homecoming parade, the parade won’t be as much fun for the students or the audience.  Get your students in the homecoming spirit by involving them as much as possible in the parade planning and float building process.

Winter Wedding Ideas

Romance doesn’t necessarily have to mean warm weather and daisies. A winter wedding can be just as gorgeous and romantic as a wedding in spring or summer. Imagine how beautiful freshly fallen snow would be, and snuggling up with your new spouse in the limo on the way to the reception. Winter weddings can be very classy and elegant if done right.

Most weddings are centered around color, and picking the right colors for a winter wedding is key to making it beautiful and unforgettable. Consider the following color schemes for a winter wedding.

Black is Back

While some people think

Fill Swag Bags with School Spirit

The end of summer and the beginning of August means one thing: school’s starting again.  High school students do not typically want to return to school, they want never-ending summers and no homework.  What better way to prepare for the return of your high school students than to put together some fun, spirited swag bags?  You can make a different type of swag bag for each class!

Freshman Swag Bags

Pick a different color bag for each class.  For example, look for green tote bags for your freshman students, but fill it with silver shred.  You could then look for a few favors to start their year off right.  Make personalized mint tins that say “Freshmen, Class of 2016” with your school name on them.  Look for a water bottle in your school color and print “Class of 2016” on it, also.  This way, your students will be able to stay hydrated through the day without waiting in long lines for the water fountains.

Sophomore Swag Bags                        

Put together blue swag bags for your sophomore class, but stick with the silver shred for stuffing the bags.  This time, make mint tins that say “Sophomores, Class of 2015” and a water bottle that says “Class of 2015.”  For your sophomores, too, you could add personalized keychains, because this is the year that many students will start driving.  They’ll feel special because you thought of their new challenge and will probably use the keychain you gave them to put their new car keys on!

Junior Swag Bags

Throw together a fun red swag bag for your juniors.  Still use the silver shred so your spirited swag bags have a somewhat uniform appearance.  As with the other years, throw in the mint tins (this time with “Class of 2014” printed on them) and water bottles.  Now you’re presented with a problem: what do you do for the juniors that will be as meaningful and fun as the key chains for the sophomores?  You could find longer lanyards in your school color and personalize them with “Class of 2014,” because this is probably the year that the students will have finally saved enough for their own car.

Senior Swag Bags

This is the class that you can choose a patterned bag or a fun silver bag and fill it with a different-colored shred.  As always, provide mint tins and water bottle for your students, but what can you add to show your seniors that they are still special?  Try a picture frame or a photo album (depending on how big or small your senior class is)!

Welcoming your students back for another year of school will be much easier if you have swag bags to give them.  Students will respond positively to a small present at the start of the year and it will likely put them in a more optimistic mood about the year ahead of them.  Start your school year off right with spirited swag bags for your classes!

Homecoming Themes and Spirit Games

With back-to-school comes a new focus for high-school students: homecoming!  When you’re trying to think of fun, new things for homecoming this year, why not add spirit games?  Prizes could include free tickets to the homecoming dance or a gift card so the winner can get dinner or go see a movie.  You can also pick a few themes and let your students vote for their favorites—or do a different theme every day of homecoming week!  Here are a few easy themes and fun spirit games to try:

• Old Hollywood Glamour Theme:  Roll out the red carpet for homecoming week!  Decorate the entrance to your school to look like the outside of an old-fashioned theater, complete with Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Pressley, and James Dean standees, to get your students into the spirit of the week.  At lunch, you could set up a ticket booth reminiscent of ticket booths at those old theaters to sell homecoming dance and football game tickets as well as hand out popcorn.  Your spirit game or contest idea here could be impersonations!  Hold a small talent competition in which your students can show off their impersonations.
• At the Carnival Theme:  Students never get too old to go to the carnival!  Hang streamers from the ceiling throughout the hallways of your school and decorate the main hall with bright colors and fun balloons.  Serve a different carnival-themed snack each day: popcorn, caramel apples, and cotton candy are great options.  The fun spirit game you could tie into this theme could be a balloon animal contest!  See which students can make a balloon animal, flower, or hat, and then have a panel made up of teachers judge to see who wins.
• Under the Starry Night Theme:  While typically, a moonlit theme is more associated with a dance, you could take and it create moonlit cookouts for lunch throughout the week.  Make it tailgate-related for the upcoming game!  Serve hot dogs, hamburgers, macaroni and cheese, and potato chips—you could even let your students sit outside and enjoy the beautiful weather for a few more days before the chill of fall sets in.  What kind of spirit game could you incorporate here, you ask?  Challenge your students to show their school spirit: have them make t-shirts, wear face paint, do anything they can to create the best show of school spirit.  The faculty of the school can judge again, but rather than one overall winner, choose a winner from each class.  This way, your students will have a chance to get to know someone they might not have otherwise met.

These are just a few suggestions—your choices for homecoming themes are wide and varied.  The best way to get your students pumped for homecoming is to do something different to catch their attention every day of the week.  By choosing a theme that has so many different possibilities, your students will definitely be ready to show their spirit at the big game!

Organize a Homecoming Flash Dance!

With school starting up again, many students are starting to look towards homecoming week.  Every school tries to find something unique to do to show their school spirit.  Set yourselves apart from the rest and organize a flash dance to celebrate your homecoming week!

Step One: Decide the preliminary details—where, when, and whom?  If you want it to happen, say, at your local mall, you’ll want to plan for a busy day (Friday or Saturday would be best) and get as many students involved as possible.  If you want your flash dance to happen at your school during your homecoming week, you have a few more decisions to make: when do you want the flash dance to happen, during lunch or between classes?  Do you want it to happen during the big game?  Which students and how many students do you want to involve?  Do you want to include members of each class, or have the seniors plan a flash dance that the rest of the school won’t know about?

Step Two:  Make up a dance.  Talk to you cheer team or your dance team about helping with the choreography of the dance.  Once the team has the choreography figured out (don’t make the moves too complicated), have someone record a video of your team not only performing the dance, but also have the team leader teach the dance, slowly, on camera.  Then, post the video on YouTube so the other dancers can learn the moves and practice a few times before the flash dance.

Step Three:  Create an event.  Most (if not all) of your fellow students are on Facebook, so use the social networking site to gather all your dancers and organize the location and the time.  You can also link to the YouTube video!

Step Four:  Locate and purchase props.  Your dancers won’t be able to tell who is going to participate or dance unless you all wear a significant prop.  Try sunglasses or feather boas.  This way, it’s silly but it’s not necessarily something that is out of the ordinary to see in a group.  Try looking at various items that add to your school spirit.  You could also look into something like a temporary tattoo that could help identify the members of your flash mob.

When you plan a flash dance, the most important thing to remember is secrecy.  If everyone finds out, it’s not going to be a surprise or earn your school any attention.  You also want to make sure that all your participants know not only the time and place of the dance, but they also must know the dance moves and must be wearing their props.  If you have to, organize a meeting a day or two prior to the event and make sure all your participants are ready to go.  Work until you’re confident that your flash dance will be an awesome display of your school spirit.  Remember, it’s all for your school and it’s meant to be fun!

How Loud Can Your Political Rally Get?

Show your support for your political party by throwing a loud and spirited rally!  Whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican, it’s your time to show your patriotism and your political stance.  Let your red, white, and blue spirit show with fun patriotic decorations.

Decorations

Balloons are a must-have at any gathering, so be sure to stock up!  Throw a fun balloon in every bunch, too, for that added patriotic flair—red or blue star-shaped Mylar balloons would be the perfect touch.  By contrasting the colors of the balloon weights (or even simply using silver balloon weights), you’ll have a very good start to a strong political rally.  In addition to your balloons to set the spirit, you’ll want to get a banner made to show your support for your favorite politician.  You can also find a cardboard standee to place at your rally.

Time for the Little Details

What political rally would be complete without favors and refreshments?  Stock up on stars and stripes plates and napkins as well as red and blue stadium cups.  Most rallies serve cookies and juice, but it would be very easy to integrate fruit, vegetables, chips, and various dips into your snack menu—you could even add small sandwiches to make your political rally that much more memorable.  When considering what beverages to serve, think about lemonade and juice, but also stock up on water bottles.  Cover the labels on the bottles with a personalized rally label.

As far as favors go, handing out miniature American flags and pinwheels is traditional at political rallies.  You can also have stickers and mini mint tins made to hand out.  If you want to do something to say “thank you” to the volunteers who help make your rally happen, put cookies and some of the other snacks in personalized jars, then let your volunteers take the jars home!  They’ll love to have a piece of an event as important and as potentially history-making as your political rally.

After the decorations, the favors, and the refreshments come together, you’ll have a beautifully put-together political rally that will encourage your friends, family, and neighbors to show their patriotic spirit.

Plan A Spirited Sorority Rush

Rushing: A Rite of Passage

When high school is over and college rolls around, students look forward to two big rites of passage: entering fraternities and entering sororities.  Individually, those sororities and fraternities try to push their potential new members by teaching traditions that have passed through the families for decades, traditions that make them who they are.  Typically, this process is known as pledging, for fraternities, or rushing, for sororities.  Sororities usually set aside a week early in the fall semester to focus on rushing the new members.  While there are small amounts of hazing that go with rushing and pledging, the big focus should be on teaching new members those rules and traditions that make your sorority so unique.  The week typically ends with a party, because it’s the perfect way for older, wiser members to welcome their younger counterparts and celebrate a new era in their family.

Show New Recruits Your Spirit

While many students enter college excited for their team and proud to wear their colors, other students place a bigger personal emphasis on their studies.  As a member of a sorority, it’s your job to teach your new recruits about when, where, and how to show their spirit, both for their school and their new sorority.  The best way to do that is to throw a spirit rush party.

Start decorating for your rush party by hanging a spirit banner with your sorority’s name on a wall opposite the entrance of your main party room.  Decorate with your school’s colors using balloons and streamers.  You can also get fun pom-poms in different colors to give to your pledges as a cute favor.

While more often than not, party games taper off as you grow up, you could throw one last big party game at your pledges.  Why not have a car decorating competition?  Gather a small supply of car decorations, such as magnets, flags, and decals, as well as a supply of window chalk.  Have your pledges break into groups.  Each group gets to decorate a car of one of the older members.  The sorority members then get to vote on who has the most spirited car at the rush party.

Rush Week Mixer

Why not be the unique sorority that plans a mixer with the other houses to celebrate rush week?  You could work with the other sororities in the area, as well as the fraternities, to plan a big blow-out that will show your new recruits just how spirited you and your fellow Greeks are.  You can make it a big theme night, gather the groups together and provide pizza and popcorn and make it into one big movie night!  A mixer early in the year is the best way for new students to make friends.

However you choose to celebrate the time-honored tradition that is rush week, do so in a manner that will show your new recruits just how much school spirit your sorority has!