Fundraising is an organization’s way to motivate people and raise money for their organization or club. Clubs or organizations will sell items such as candles, cookies, or chocolate to gather money, so the expenses for the club or organization can be paid off to do different things like travel or donate. The Lake Ridge Key Club recently started selling Albanese Gummy Bears to raise money to donate to the Children’s Miracle Network. The Albanese Gummy Bears are sold for one dollar so that everyone can buy them and enjoy them. Sophomore, Olivia Wurtz, is part of Key Club and enjoyed selling Gummy Bears, because she knows that she is helping out.

“It was fun selling gummy bears, because it was really easy to sell them, because a lot of people like them. I like how I know that I am helping out in some way and they were really cheap, so that’s another reason why it was easy to sell them,” said Wurtz.

Many organizations at Lake Ridge have done fundraisers. The Lake Ridge ROTC just finished up their own fundraiser by selling chocolate, and the Lake Ridge Choir did online funding while some students sold bags of popcorn, so the expenses of yearly trips outside of the state and small trips as whole choirs are not as expensive. The expenses go towards trips that the choir takes together to see other choirs or for their UIL competition, when paying for buses for transportation. Doing fundraisers help organizations pay for their transportation, so that students have rides when the choir goes on field trips, and don’t have to carpool with other students. Sophomore, Mckenzie Morgan, did both the online and the popcorn fundraiser and says that fundraiser are beneficial to choir, because of the expenses they pay for transportation.

“Fundraisers help us have transportation whenever we need to go somewhere for like field trips or to competitions. I did both fundraisers, because they are easy fundraisers to do in order to get the money we need to go on these trips and pay the expenses,” Morgan said.

Although many people like doing fundraisers, some do not like doing fundraisers at all. It is not because they do not want to help out, it is sometimes because of the social anxiety of going up to people and asking if they want to buy what you are selling. Fundraisers are something that force you to interact with people in order to have people buy whatever you are selling. Many parents of children dislike fundraisers, because they do not want their kid to have the responsibility of going to people and asking to buy the item they are selling. Many parents also dislike fundraisers, because they do not want to help their child go to others and help sell the item. Freshman, Reagan Morrow, says that her parents do not like her to participate in fundraisers, because her parents are uncomfortable with the thought of Morrow going to others houses and asked to buy stuff.

“My mom is really big on not doing fundraisers, because she does not like me going up to people and asking them to buy something from me. I personally also do not like fundraisers, because I do not like asking people to buy something from me in fear of being rejected,” said Morrow.

Fundraising is a way for clubs and organizations to raise money to donate to help certain researchers or for transportation when going somewhere. However, fundraisers do not please everyone and not everyone likes to do it, but knowing that you are helping the best way possible is also a good thing.