Chocolate fundraiser not so sweet

Sales of confectionery are a common way for schools to raise money - but one attempt left a sour taste. File photo / Dean Purcell

A primary school's chocolate fundraiser turned into a debt-collection exercise after parents failed to cough up around $3000.

Birkenhead Primary School's Parent Teachers Association raised funds by giving pupils boxes of chocolate bars to sell at $2 a bar.

But at the end of the fundraising stint, the Auckland school was $3000 out of pocket, and had to start chasing up parents.

Former PTA chair Vicki Vachias said the association still finished around $600-$700 short. "Most of it came in, a little bit didn't."

Vachias said the PTA put the loss down to the recession.

"We just wrote it off as a sign of the times. We just wrote that off as being what happens with some families."

The event raised about $5500 for the school despite the shortfall.

Principal Nigel Bioletti said the PTA has been active in raising money for the school for a number of years.

"I would think that they would do it again but perhaps there's a lesson to be learned here. At any school you're going to have parents that don't return things.

"When parents don't return things you do your best but if they don't front up that's just the way it is."

A source linked to the school said the chocolate was being sold as part of a general fundraising drive.

"There was one family that had a whacking great sum of outstanding money that went missing.

"Questions are still being asked as to where the extra money has gone."

New Zealand Parent Teachers Association president Amanda Meldon recommended that schools named a co-coordinator whose job it was to keep track of all products going out and money coming in.

"We have heard of it happening, it's certainly not unusual but it would normally be a smaller discrepancy."

Meldon said the recession had impacted on the ability to raise funds. "Fundraising is certainly getting harder."

Figures released by the Ministry of Education recently showed that state and integrated schools raised $570 million in local funds last year.

Locally raised funds are made up of donations, activities, trading and fundraising.

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