Explaining for the adults

It's a tough out there. We all know it. Figure in being a middle or high school student and being asked to sell at least 5 cheesecakes at $20 per pop to a town full of broke people. My kids did it. My kids plus a friend, sold their minimum, a combined 15 cheesecakes and I will tell you, it wasn't easy.

Raising money through fundraisers has been a long standing event with school age children. I am well aware of that but during my own fund raising days, we sold candy bars, not $20 cheesecakes.

My son and daughter are both in chorus at their school. They were asked to sell their minimum of these desserts, in order to be able to participate in an upcoming field trip. My daughter took her order form to my mom's job and got her orders there. That left my son. My son and one of my daughter's friends, that is also in the class, hit our neighborhood. They went door to door, where many of the people that lived in those homes are struggling to make ends meet week to week, and sold their remaining amounts.

The estimated delivery date printed at the top of the order form was the first week in February. Guess what. We are there but the cheesecakes aren't. The kids were told yesterday that the orders were delayed for a week and would be in the beginning of next week. Today, it was moved back another week.

Out of respect, my kids rode around to all their customers and told them their orders were delayed (although we are not sure why they are). They were all very nice about it. I was embarassed. I didn't want all those people that were nice enough to help out, to think that my kids were going door to door and scamming them out of their hard earned money when they didn't get their orders when told.

It is very unfortunate that kids that are out raising funds for a particular program are put in a position of explaining for the adults. (Reminds me of my old job) Anyway, we will hold our breath and wait for the next couple of weeks to pass and hope there are no more changes. And guess what...my kids don't even get to go on the field trip. Yep, what they did not know was the class that sold the most got the trip. The rest were omitted. Evidentally, there was a class that didn't stop at their 5 required orders. For us, 5 was 5 too many.