Theatre Program Fundraising Idea: Do your own coffee house

Episode 196: Fundraising idea: Do your own coffee house Listen in for the details of an awesome fundraiser event. Low cost, easy to plan, all you need is a space and your students. You too can fundraise for your program without losing your time or your mind! Show Notes Google form for Auditions * Winter Coffee House Poster * Spring Coffee House Poster Episode Transcript Welcome to the Drama Teacher Podcast brought to you by Theatrefolk – the Drama Teacher Resource Company. I’m Lindsay Price. Hello! I hope you're well. Thanks for listening! This is Episode 196 and you can find any links to this episode in the show notes which are at Theatrefolk.com/episode196. Today, we are going to talk about fundraising, specifically fundraising for your program without losing time or your mind because that’s the thing I think where fundraising can get into a real bumpy road. It’s the thing that everybody wants to do. But, if it just eats up your time and makes you go a little crazy, that’s not good for anybody. Our guest does a particular fundraiser twice a year and it’s very successful for her. It’s an awesome, low-cost, low-key event. I think, instead of me just talking about it, we should get to the conversation. Let’s get to it! LINDSAY: Hello, everyone! I am here talking with Ellen Miller. Hello, Ellen! ELLEN: Hello! How are you? LINDSAY: I’m awesome! Thank you so much! And you? How are you? ELLEN: I’m great! I’m fantastic! LINDSAY: Well, you can’t ask for more than that. That’s the best. I’d like to start by just asking if you would tell everybody where in the world you are situated right now? ELLEN: I am in Dallas, Texas. I teach in Plano which is just north of Dallas and I teach at a ninth through tenth grade high school in Plano. LINDSAY: Oh. So, you only deal with grade nines and tens? ELLEN: I do, yeah. It’s kind of a different situation in my city. LINDSAY: Yeah, what is that like? Do your students get drama in middle school? ELLEN: They do. We have theatre in sixth grade through, well, seventh grade and eighth grade at our middle schools and then the sixth graders can participate in the shows at the middle school level. In ninth and tenth grade, we have a full technical theatre course offering and theatre course offerings. I teach Technical Theatre I and II and Advanced Technical Theatre class. We have kind of a full range of offerings at our ninth and tenth grade level. LINDSAY: Yeah, that’s pretty awesome. And then, they go off to eleventh and twelfth. Do you miss not getting them in eleven and twelve or do you like where you are? ELLEN: I like where I am. You kind of get the best of both worlds. The sophomores still get to kind of take on a leadership position and you get to really see them grow over two years and then it’s cool because we do a lot with our eleventh and twelfth grade school. We call them senior highs here. It’s cool to see them grow in an even bigger theatre situation in the eleventh and twelfth grade. LINDSAY: I would imagine in that situation that leadership really is much different than if you’re in a nine through twelve school because,