How To Host a School Color Run Fundraiser

 

  Color Runs are everywhere. They are very popular and extremely fun! I was given the idea to bring a color run to my school by my fabulous and talented blogging buddy, Amy Labrasciano from Learning Lessons With Mrs. Labrasciano. She posted about the color run her school did. You can read her post here.
I decided to take her idea and give it my own twist.     I first looked into having a company host our color run. The problem was, they wanted $25 per participant.  In my area that I teach in, that was an outrageous price. It was highly unlikely that we would get enough participants for it to be profitable. Plus, that would mean leaving kids out of the race because they couldn't afford to enter. Yea, not cool with me.
I then decided that I would host the color run as a school on our own. This would mean creating flyers, making the colored powder, etc. 
I decided on a theme for our school's color run. Bee Healthy! It is spring time, so I found it fitting. Plus I love themes. It is so much fun to create everything that goes along with a theme. I created permission forms and pledge forms for the race. You can download an editable version by clicking here. I even included an editable graphic that you can use on your school's website and/or social media.    This was the graphic I used for my school. 

Now that I had forms completed, it was time to advertise. I created a commercial using iMovie and publishing that on YouTube.  It took me a half our to create. iMovie is so user friendly. Check out my video here. I emailed teachers a few times a week to remind them to show the video. This helped get the students excited about the event. 
To get teachers motivated, I created a few contests for them. One contest award went to the teacher that collected to most donations. Another was to the first teacher to turn in ALL forms. This excited the teachers and got them talking about the color run everyday.
Finally, I needed to get the kids REALLY excited to raise money. I had a very limited budget. My coworker came up with the idea of a silly string party. BRILLIANT! To entice the kiddos even more, I got the principal to attend the silly string party so they would use the silly string on her. 
Onto the color. This was the hardest part of all and I will NOT be doing this next year. As I said before, we had a very limited budget. Like a $50 budget. Fortunately, we were able to get 100lbs of corn starch donated to us. We were also able to get food coloring donated. To make the color, I followed the directions from {this} website. It was tiring and a VERY VERY VERY long process.
The day of the color run came quickly. Kids were excited all day long. I had planned for primary grades to run from 12 to 1pm and intermediate to run from 1-2pm. Next year, I will be spacing out the times. For example, kindergarten at 12pm, first grade at 12:15pm. This will help with crowding issues. The primary grades only ran 1/2 a mile and intermediate ran 1 mile. It was short and sweet. 
As far as the color went, I spaced out volunteers to each corner. I made backup wet color (water, vinegar, and food coloring). I'm so glad I did because it worked WAY better than the powder. 
The color run was a HUGE success at my school. All kids were able to participate even if they didn't donate. The smiles on their faces were priceless. Everyone had a blast. It was a wonderful event.  I highly recommend you hosting a color run at your school.