Will Rogers

I don’t like upsetting people. Well, OK, there’s one reader who makes

it fun. She leaves long messages about columns, telling me what I really

meant, and why I wrote what I did. She has yet to give me a means to

contact her with proof of all the facts that she says don’t exist. But I

marvel at her dedication, never missing a column she apparently despises.

She even catches up after traveling out of town. I admit her seething

contempt is a small reward for my having to hear her messages.

Otherwise, I don’t enjoy bringing folks to gnashing their teeth,

especially those who work long and selflessly toward a noble goal. But I

can’t let this year’s edition of a fund-raising program now underway at

the elementary school my children attend, and at other Burbank schools,

pass without comment.

Last year I ranted about fund-raising that has our kids peddling

magazines and knickknacks. At our school, the cash goes toward a laudable

science school, to the tune of $10,000 last year. The program, run by

Readers Digest subsidiary called QSP, advertises that 40% of every

subscription dollar goes to the school. The school gets 50% of the other

sales, like the $15 charged for an 8-ounce tin of chocolates.

Each year the schools haul our kids into assemblies to hear a pitch

from “Mr. Weepul,” QSP’s representative. In the same circumstances kids

are lectured about drugs and child safety, Weepul whips kids into a

frenzy over the prizes for top sellers. The infamous wind tunnel, a booth

filled with swirling dollar bills a lucky child was invited to grab for,

was banned at my local school long ago. It’s apparently no longer

available anywhere in Burbank since I wrote about it last year. The candy

reward for turning in the names and addresses of 10 relatives and friends

is also gone. It was replaced by “A grab from the Mystery Weepul Grab!”

(The unfortunate wording refers to a grab bag.) Weepul told the kids that

filling out the 10 address forms is their “homework.”

More bait goes to students who achieve various sales levels. $25 earns

a pen. $50 gets the pen and “glow-in-the-dark putty.” They continue and

accumulate, up to $400 in sales, when the student can choose a CD player

or a mini refrigerator. A refrigerator?

Prohibited from selling to strangers, kids are urged to contact

relatives and friends of their parents. So the awards aren’t really for

sales ability. They’re for kids whose families are large, or willing to

write large checks. Those with small families, or whose friends and

families have less disposable cash? Well, there’s something wrong with

them, so they get novelty pens, or nothing.

Students get especially wound up over the incredible “Dream Giveaway”

prizes. They can win a home entertainment package, including a computer,

TV, and game machine, or a trip to New York for four, each prize valued

at $5,000. Mr. Weepul didn’t tell kids that they aren’t alone in hoping

for those fab prizes. QSP’s program is used in 40,000 schools nationwide,

and the fine print reveals each entrant in all those schools competing

for the two prizes face odds of one out of 2 million. Weepul also didn’t

boast another gem in the entry form’s small print. No one has to sell

anything to enter.

In sample materials, QSP suggests kids sell subscriptions, for

example, to “grandma.” But amid repeated mentions of the 40% share of

each subscription dollar going to the school, I found many of the rates

are higher -- in some cases much higher -- than grandma would pay by

contacting the magazine directly.

Grandma can subscribe to Money magazine through QSP and pay $29.95, or

call Money’s toll-free number and pay only $19.95 for the same number of

issues. Of course, none of the direct subscription cash goes to the

school.

The top QSP saleskid at my local school will be named “Principal for a

Day.” (The rules prohibit firing teachers or canceling classes.) There is

no program that awards “Principal for a Day” status to kids with good

grades or even the best manners.

The argument could be made that, by misleading kids, taking advantage

of their naivete, sending them to work as the underpaid sales force for a

corporation, and using part of the school day to do it, our kids learn

harsh facts of life. Trouble is, no one lets them in on the secret:

They’re being used and manipulated.

Fund-raising is an absolute necessity in the real world. We can’t

demand politicians give more money to schools, this while we demand

schools restore beneficial programs we remember, like music and art, all

while we simultaneously demand the same politicians pledge never to raise

taxes and we howl about school fund-raising.

Like me, lots of parents whine about the constant deluge of glossy

catalogs sent home. We plead “Let me just write one check and be done

with it.” But the check never gets written. We don’t want our kids

working as shills for grossly overpriced wrapping paper, but we don’t

volunteer to help develop alternatives.

One of the newest forms of fund-raising involves “scrip,” and it’s

available through the PTA of virtually every school in the city. As long

as you’re buying groceries every week, you can buy scrip dollars good at

your store. Everything costs the same, you still use your club cards and

coupons, and $1 in scrip is the same as $1 in U.S. currency. The twist is

that the store gives back a share of each scrip dollar to the school that

sold it. That’s as close to free money as we’ll get.

Scrip isn’t limited to groceries. From shoe stores to toy stores to

sporting goods, from national restaurant chains to fast food outlets, you

can buy scrip for an amazing variety of businesses. Some return as little

as 2% to the school. Others, most notably Bob’s Big Boy on Riverside

Drive, give back an astonishing 40 percent -- and that without charging

Grandma inflated prices.

As many parents as I’ve talked to around my kids’ school about

fund-raising excesses and abuses, I was stunned to learn our schools’

scrip program -- as painless as any program can be -- limps along. I’d

like to see Mr. Weepul banned from every Burbank campus, or at least

limited to putting on his carnival show outside school hours. But to see

valuable classes and experiences remain available to every student, the

least we can do is convert dollars we’ll spend anyway into scrip good at

the same places we normally shop.