I was offered the oppertunity to start a dance team at a high school. The school and the local area really needs it to boost moral! Anyways, There are some ups and downs. The good new is the students have big hearts and want to learn!! The bad news... We have NO funding and the students all come from low income familys. I have a few question I thought some of you could help me with...
1. I am holding a dance camp for the whole month of August. Its all day 5 days a week. All the teachers are volenteer and the camp is free. The students really want to go to competition this season. Any advice on drills for fast learning everything would be great!! They will be doing many hours of ballet, jazz, turns, leaps and more. This is sort of a crash course in dance.
2. Fundraising... ok heres the deal any fundraising done at the we have to give 50% of the profit to the school. Any good money making ideas to not do at the school??
3. Just any basci advice would be great!!
Thanks!!

Well, those could work, but the best fundraiser we have done is have people sell flowers at the recital. I am guessing you would need the money sooner, so you could try taking pre order. Give out a form to every kid in the school. If one of their friends is dancing they will probably come and buy some flowers. Another big thing we did was a car wash. And the last one we did was the apple bees breakfast.

Wow, sounds like you have many different concerns and lots of potential for frustration..

First of all, take a deep breath and relax. Look at what you have, what you want, and what's realistic to set as your first year goals. Do you want to perform at half time with the marching band, or at basketball games, or in parades.

When you have camp, you'll have some students that are good at certain things and not so good at others. You'll probably have a 'best all around" student or two that can do everything. Encourage them to help others and use this time to complement them on their team work skills instead of constantly having to recognize them for being the best in class. That will open up the opportunity for you to have less gift/skiled students to get recognized for their improvement.

Fund Raising can be TOUGH! I still don't get bake sales. A mom spends 15$ to either buy or bake a cake, that sells for 10$ at best. It just never worked for me. Now the idea of the Air Force having to hold a bake sale to buy a fighter jet and the school system having enough funding, THAT SOUNDS LIKE A HOOT! But I digress.... Something that worked really well is a "free car wash" The students get pledges for 10 or 15 cent per car washed, from as many people as they can. Then you put up a big sign and do a FREE CAR WASH! just get people to sign that they had their car washed, then collect the pledges. Another more risky one is the TOPLESS CAR WASH. It works great if your set up BEHIND a building..... You wash the bottom for FREE, to the the TOP of the car washed, they have to pay a donation......You have to be careful with this one that the administration is cool with it.

The BEST advice I can give you is get your students into something coordinated as far as shorts and T shirts and get them in the public eye. Have them wear their stuff to school, have them in parades, have them at local public events. Just take them to the local park and let the practice in their shorts outfits so people can see them. It's all about exposure.

I'm not sure where you are located, but if you are in a big enough city, have them do some kind of volunteer project like adopting a mile of the roadway for clean up, take pictures and put it in the local paper. Have the volunteer to take out shopping items at the local walmart and give out flyers to their next performance. Anything that will get them out in the public eye.

Lastly, have fun WITH them. Contact the local ice cream shop and ask them to donate a couple of gallons of ice cream, throw the girls a surprise ice cream party..