Amish/Mennonite Benefit Dinners & Auctions

[mike]

Fundraisers for regular operations of a private school have always bothered me. It feels like asking the public to help support your private school, which you have freely elected to be a part of, while the public already supports public schools with their tax dollars. It feels like saying, "Even though you already pay for public schools, please help me pay for my own expensive private school."

To be fair, we also support public schools with our money. Our own member-supported school is also open to the public provided they comply with the same requirements on church families (essentially, not having a TV in the home). With that said, we do not conduct public fundraisers to support our own school.

Yes, that's true, come to think of it.

The youth group is conducting fundraisers to raise funds to build a new school, but they are doing things like offering up work days, hosting meals, or selling "meal tickets" (where you get a full meal delivered to your home) to do this. This is essentially offering up their own labour in exchange for community support for the school.

As a business that is flooded with donation requests, it is easy to get a little jaded by some of the types of requests that come in. For example, the churches and organizations that decide to do something for the community such as a free dinner or an Easter egg hunt or something like that, which is all fine and good, but then each year they come with their hand out for support for their event. Particularly if it is a church, how exactly is the decision made to go forward with an event that costs money when the church itself cannot underwrite the event? Sometimes I think these groups want to look good to the community and put themselves out as a benefactor, but they need donations from others in order to do so. Make it make sense.

Yes, I agree with this. At times it seems the main effect of joining the local Chamber of Commerce is to get requests to support various things.

I've had the same thought. I think of it as advertising expense, but it's often not very much bang for your buck.

[ohio jones]

Maybe Hebrews 10:24 applies here?

Are all ways of provoking one another to love and good works equally valid? Or are some more preferred or more in harmony with Christ's teachings than others? I think that is the core question being discussed in this thread.

Charity is not easily provoked, 1 Cor. 13:5.

[Neto]

Fundraisers for regular operations of a private school have always bothered me. It feels like asking the public to help support your private school, which you have freely elected to be a part of, while the public already supports public schools with their tax dollars. It feels like saying, "Even though you already pay for public schools, please help me pay for my own expensive private school."

As a business that is flooded with donation requests, it is easy to get a little jaded by some of the types of requests that come in. For example, the churches and organizations that decide to do something for the community such as a free dinner or an Easter egg hunt or something like that, which is all fine and good, but then each year they come with their hand out for support for their event. Particularly if it is a church, how exactly is the decision made to go forward with an event that costs money when the church itself cannot underwrite the event? Sometimes I think these groups want to look good to the community and put themselves out as a benefactor, but they need donations from others in order to do so. Make it make sense.

When we returned to the States we DID send our two older children (then already in HS) to a Christian school. All of our children attended the public school for the elementary school years, during the times when we were on home assignment in the States. Our youngest got involved in band in elementary school, so since the Christian schools didn't have that, we kept him in the public school, where he graduated HS.

I actually do not favor taking children out of the public school system. I went to public school all 12 years, and it was good for me in respect to learning to live as a Christian in daily interactions with friends and classmates who were not Christians. People often talk about how bad the public schools are, but are they not that way partly because many of the Christian young people in that community are not there? I know that the public school scene now is not like it was 50 years ago. I get that. But do we unconsciously communicate distrust to our children if we "shelter them from the world" until they are 18? Let them learn to live as examples of faith when the things they face are the smaller things (in comparison to what they will face in later life).

What I’ve seen over & over is parents who raise them in the faith and lose them due to public school teaching, such as evolution. Then these days as young as kindergarten children are forced to read books that promote LGBTQ - I hear these stories of children being “influenced” by these teachings which is why so many denominations now are pro LGBTQ. I feel that parents still need to protect the souls of their children because of what I’ve witnessed happening..

I was also taught evolution in the public school, and I graduated in 74, so that aspect was already going on then. (This was also in a small town in the so-called "Bible Belt", not some huge city in a liberal area of the country.) The science class in which I recall being taught evolution was in either 7th or 8th grade, I think the former. I was in 7th grade in the school year 68-69, turning 13 years old soon after the start of the school year. Somehow I already had received enough training at home and church that I didn't accept it. I'm not differing with you about parents protecting their children. I'm just not convinced that one must remove their children from all exposure to these falsehoods in order to achieve that. I don't know if this is an apt symbolism for this question, but some say things like "A violin string must be stretched in order to make beautiful music."

[R7ehr]

Some stretched violin strings make quite ugly music.

[Grace]

Fundraisers for regular operations of a private school have always bothered me. It feels like asking the public to help support your private school, which you have freely elected to be a part of, while the public already supports public schools with their tax dollars. It feels like saying, "Even though you already pay for public schools, please help me pay for my own expensive private school."

I can see your point. However, no one is forcing the public to attend any fund-raising auctions/events. The public that come to these auctions/events usually don't come with a mindset that they are supporting a private school, but often come for the food, activities, and possibly some of the stuff being sold. I was at the Ephrata Mennonite School sale one year and was shocked to see one of the main administrators of the local public school, (Ephrata School District) there. It happened his wife was a quilt buff and was looking for a well-made beautiful quilt.

Here in Lancaster County where there are private schools galore, from little Amish/Mennonite schools to large schools, such as Ephrata Mennonite School and Lancaster Mennonite School, etc. For them the public should be thankful, because most of the parents sending their children to private schools or homeschool, are property owners and some owning large business properties as well. So besides paying tuition, they pay exorbitant amounts in taxes going to the public schools. Yet the public is not paying to educate the privately educated children, but the private education parents are paying to educate the public's children. If the thousands of non-public schooled children her in Lancaster County were put into the public schools, I would hate to see what the taxes would be.

[Signtist]

Fundraisers for regular operations of a private school have always bothered me. It feels like asking the public to help support your private school, which you have freely elected to be a part of, while the public already supports public schools with their tax dollars. It feels like saying, "Even though you already pay for public schools, please help me pay for my own expensive private school."

As a business that is flooded with donation requests, it is easy to get a little jaded by some of the types of requests that come in. For example, the churches and organizations that decide to do something for the community such as a free dinner or an Easter egg hunt or something like that, which is all fine and good, but then each year they come with their hand out for support for their event. Particularly if it is a church, how exactly is the decision made to go forward with an event that costs money when the church itself cannot underwrite the event? Sometimes I think these groups want to look good to the community and put themselves out as a benefactor, but they need donations from others in order to do so. Make it make sense.

I understand, in part what you are saying. Private schools are expensive. Tuition alone doesn't not cover the operating costs, so the money will have to come from somewhere. At our school, only 40% of the students come from our church. It is a "Community school" in a very real sense, with some patro s not being Mennonite. We have a fundraising event every year, and also our church kicks in to cover deficits. But since we are building a new schools, which the church is funding, we probably can't rely on our church for much in the way of donations at the moment. We are a community school, so we do reach out to the broader community for donations. We benefit their businesses, after all. They supply our propane, they build our buildings, they supply our businesses with materials, they provide us with building loans, haul our livestock and other products. Our youth end up working for them. Our Mennonite community is a huge benefit to local businesses and economy. We certainly start with churches, but we also don't hesitate to tap businesses that we do commerce with on an ongoing basis. If we raised tuition to where it would have to be to run the school, many a single income family simply couldn't afford to send their children. I'm not sure exactly what the answer us.

[mike]

Fundraisers for regular operations of a private school have always bothered me. It feels like asking the public to help support your private school, which you have freely elected to be a part of, while the public already supports public schools with their tax dollars. It feels like saying, "Even though you already pay for public schools, please help me pay for my own expensive private school."

As a business that is flooded with donation requests, it is easy to get a little jaded by some of the types of requests that come in. For example, the churches and organizations that decide to do something for the community such as a free dinner or an Easter egg hunt or something like that, which is all fine and good, but then each year they come with their hand out for support for their event. Particularly if it is a church, how exactly is the decision made to go forward with an event that costs money when the church itself cannot underwrite the event? Sometimes I think these groups want to look good to the community and put themselves out as a benefactor, but they need donations from others in order to do so. Make it make sense.

I understand, in part what you are saying. Private schools are expensive. Tuition alone doesn't not cover the operating costs, so the money will have to come from somewhere. At our school, only 40% of the students come from our church. It is a "Community school" in a very real sense, with some patro s not being Mennonite. We have a fundraising event every year, and also our church kicks in to cover deficits. But since we are building a new schools, which the church is funding, we probably can't rely on our church for much in the way of donations at the moment. We are a community school, so we do reach out to the broader community for donations. We benefit their businesses, after all. They supply our propane, they build our buildings, they supply our businesses with materials, they provide us with building loans, haul our livestock and other products. Our youth end up working for them. Our Mennonite community is a huge benefit to local businesses and economy. We certainly start with churches, but we also don't hesitate to tap businesses that we do commerce with on an ongoing basis. If we raised tuition to where it would have to be to run the school, many a single income family simply couldn't afford to send their children. I'm not sure exactly what the answer us.

Valid points all.

[temporal1]

^^Not to overlook public schools also have plenty of fund raisers and benefit dinners, etc.

Fundraisers for regular operations of a private school have always bothered me. It feels like asking the public to help support your private school, which you have freely elected to be a part of, while the public already supports public schools with their tax dollars. It feels like saying, "Even though you already pay for public schools, please help me pay for my own expensive private school."

As a business that is flooded with donation requests, it is easy to get a little jaded by some of the types of requests that come in. For example, the churches and organizations that decide to do something for the community such as a free dinner or an Easter egg hunt or something like that, which is all fine and good, but then each year they come with their hand out for support for their event. Particularly if it is a church, how exactly is the decision made to go forward with an event that costs money when the church itself cannot underwrite the event?

Sometimes I think these groups want to look good to the community and put themselves out as a benefactor, but they need donations from others in order to do so. Make it make sense.

^^If i’m not mistaken, this was a significant part of oprah’s formula to becoming a billionaire. bil·​lion·​air·​ess

Personally, i’m grateful for the many varying types of people and groups, even many i could not join; i’m not an auction person, but i enjoy learning about them and the many people who participate. All these people are God created.

i grew up in a big, diverse, crazy family, many have passed away, i miss them.

My mother used to say how borng life would be if everyone were alike!
i’ve not found fault with this in the decades of my life. Including on this forum.

“Scoot over, always room for one more” she would say. As she set another plate at our humble crowded table.