Girl Scouts earning their way to Disney!

[TinaLala]

So my Girl Scout troop has asked to go to Disney for the last five years and every year I say no. They know I'm a HUGE Disney fan, but I figured it was more for families to take their scouts and I couldn't relate it to scouts in anyway.

Then my husband showed me their YES program and I was sold. Great way to show scouts how Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math work at Disney and all around them. We've been fundraising like crazy and hopefully we'll be able to raise enough money so parents wont pay too much.

So my post is really to ask for ideas of things to do with the scouts inexpensively to give them the Disney experience but not break the bank.

Ex. One scout suggested we get Mickey ears with the troop number embrodiered on it with green Trefoils in each ears.

So any ideas?

 

[Gumbo4x4]

Our band just did a fund raiser and had several Ford cars there. For each person who did a test drive, Ford gave them $20 up to a max of 300 people ($6,000). Not sure what the program is called or how much they raised, but seemed like something to check into.

 

[glassslippergirl]

You can camp in Ft. Wilderness for a lot less than staying in a hotel. Not sure if that's what you're looking for. Cabins in FW bunk several kids well and have a full kitchen.

Ft. Wilderness also has a campfire show and movie every night, hay rides, surrey bike rental, horseback riding, etc.

You can rent a pontoon boat at DTD. It's $90 per hour or thereabouts, but when divided among many, not so much. Not sure about limits on number of people, but it's a unique way to explore part of the property.

Behind the Seeds tour in Epcot is relatively inexpensive and might be right up the alley if Girl Scouts.

 

[vcr]

We live close so we went to Disney several times with my older dds troop (Magic Kingdom, Epcot, were water girls for the half iron man, and spent a weekend with a full day scavenger hunt and Cirque) the girls favorite things were being water girls and the scavenger hunt both of which were free or cheap. I made the scavenger hunt up, have them digital disposable cameras, divided into groups and they spent the whole day doing it. It was mainly at the campground and downtown Disney, but they also had to ride the monorail. I plan to do this with younger dd's troop, but things have changed in the last 10 years so I have to change it up some. We also did the evening hydride less than $9 a person and they took us to the lake to see the electrical water parade and fireworks. They also have a free kitchen tour at Animal Kingdom Lodge that would tie into a badge. If you plan to go in the summer, I wouldn't camp because you will be miserably hot.

 

[TinaLala]

The YES program is a great behind the scenes tour plus the prices are amazingly inexpensive. Ive talked to a bunch of people who have done it individually

 

[Shanna-like-Banana]

Hi TinaLana,

I am a girl scout leader and my troop is getting ready to go on a YES trip.

It's taken the girls 3 years to work up and save up enough money to go on the trip. Each girl has earned enough to pay 100% of her own part, not a single parent is going to pay a dime to send her scout

The YES program is great, and I've noticed for the last 3 summers, Disney has put on a program called Girls Unite. Its very similar to the YES program with a few add ins. Although it looks like a great program, we couldn't use it, due to they only publish their dates like 6 weeks before the event, and they always say there is no guarantee they will do it the following year. So, that really doesn't work for troops coming in from out of state.

I would say, get your trip application in to your council as soon as you have a real date. We applied for our trip 2 years ago and have had to continue to give our council updates on our progress and as we finalize plans along the way.

Really try as best as possible to let the girls make the decisions. I know sometimes it can be hard to sit back, when we know so much info, but its really part of letting it be girl-led.

One thing I want to stress is that you will have to commit to follow Safety Wise while on the trip. So things like the water mice, para-sailing at BLT, pontoon boat rentals, etc are all against safety wise. It would be VERY VERY hard to get real permission from any council to agree to any of those.

As far as fundraising, I'm pretty sure you already have a good idea about all the rules that goes along with it. Your not allowed to endorse another brand or products in the name of Girl Scouts. It has to be something the girls plan, carry out, produce, put on, etc. It has to have a very specific goal to reach.

Our girls came up with about 10 activity badge based fundraisers they thought council would say yes to letting them put on.

We did a Field Day. We put on 3 years in a row a Daughters & D.A.D.s Dance, we planned a Me & My Gal P.A.L, the girls sell fall products and generally range between $40-70 each girl each year and they sell the heck out of cookies, generally range between 500-1400 boxes each girl, each year, for the last 3 years.

 

[TinaLala]

Hi TinaLana,

I am a girl scout leader and my troop is getting ready to go on a YES trip.

It's taken the girls 3 years to work up and save up enough money to go on the trip. Each girl has earned enough to pay 100% of her own part, not a single parent is going to pay a dime to send her scout

We did a Field Day. We put on 3 years in a row a Daughters & D.A.D.s Dance, we planned a Me & My Gal P.A.L, the girls sell fall products and generally range between $40-70 each girl each year and they sell the heck out of cookies, generally range between 500-1400 boxes each girl, each year, for the last 3 years.

Shanna - so good to hear another troop who has gone and raised the fund. Gives me hope we can do the same. My goal is 100% keeping my fingers crossed. We're doing a pancake breakfast at Applebee's the end of the month and of course car washes and can drives.

I'm looking forward to the planning process with them. Had a talk a few weeks ago and found out one scout is actually afraid of characters! That was a shocker since her family does the Disney cruise every other year.

When are you actually going? We're going in Oct 2015 so we still have fundraising time, but I'd rather be further along then where we are. Of course!

Did you book everything thru Disney yes direct? Are you using their food vouchers or preloaded cards?

 

[VBelle68]

I took 8 SR GS and two adults to WDW in March, 2006. Took them 5 years to raise enough money! But they did it!
Mu biggest fear was that they would not have enough money for meals, so I made sure to purchase the dining plan, back then tips were included.
They had a blast, and still talk about it today! Most are 24 or 25 now!
We picked a park a day and stayed for the entire day. I just had them check in with me every 3 hours or so.
I didn't do any "extras" at all. No DTD, no waterparks, no carriage or boat rental. So, after they had paid for the room, the dining package, and tickets (before they left) they didn't need money for anything!

 

[Shanna-like-Banana]

wow, you're very lucky your council approved you to do the Applebee's pancake breakfast. We have two places around here that do them Apple-bees and another places called Fatz.

Our council doesn't allow it, they say its endorsing another brand, which is not allowed.

We're not allowed to do car-washes either. Pretty much we're not allowed to do anything that's based on strictly earning money.

It has to be something based on a service, activity, teaching moment, girl scout tradition, etc. That's why we mainly went with the activity based badges. One troop in our area did a letter boxing seminar at a local state park, that went pretty well. We did the Field day badge.

Its taken us 3 years of planning and saving to be able to get to this point.

We started out with the girls pricing out the hotels and automatically adding 20% for inflation and a built in cushion all around. Then we looked at YES ticket prices, this was before the price hike, and again added inflation, looking back the girls are very glad they did.

We had the girls lay out the ground work for the trip. They had to figure out what A L L the costs would be, how things would be paid for, how the payments would be made, how the funds would be split up, etc. We made them come to an agreement before we made any real plans, or paid for anything.

They decided on the 5-day base YES ticket. They wanted to be able to do each park, and really wanted to do MK twice. They had decided on taking 2 YES classes during the 5 days. So we had to make sure to add the $35 pp for the addition YES class.

We are doing the dining plan. The regular dining. We are not doing the meal vouchers for 2 main reasons : Price and choices.

Price : we looked the vouchers and the girls decided the value wasn't there for them. The girls realized that you pretty much have to order the most expensive entree, dessert and drink at each counter service to get your moneys worth. That means even ordering the most expensive thing, even if it's not what you are really wanting.

Choices : they really wanted to do some table services, they wanted to have some nice dinners, so they've picked Chefs De France, Cali Grill, GF Cafe, along with Tusker, Crystal Palace, Sci-Fi, and 1900 Park Fare.

We are very very very lucky to have a DVC family in our troop. And we were given the awesome gift of being allowed to stay in their villa. If it weren't for this opportunity, we would have either had to do more fundraisers or save for another year.

Lastly, by going under the YES program would be the ONLY way our council would approve the trip. They would not have let us go, if it had been just going to Disney for going to Disney.

 

[angelmom27]

wow, you're very lucky your council approved you to do the Applebee's pancake breakfast. We have two places around here that do them Apple-bees and another places called Fatz.

Our council doesn't allow it, they say its endorsing another brand, which is not allowed.

We're not allowed to do car-washes either. Pretty much we're not allowed to do anything that's based on strictly earning money.

It has to be something based on a service, activity, teaching moment, girl scout tradition, etc. That's why we mainly went with the activity based badges. One troop in our area did a letter boxing seminar at a local state park, that went pretty well. We did the Field day badge.

Its taken us 3 years of planning and saving to be able to get to this point.

We started out with the girls pricing out the hotels and automatically adding 20% for inflation and a built in cushion all around. Then we looked at YES ticket prices, this was before the price hike, and again added inflation, looking back the girls are very glad they did.

We had the girls lay out the ground work for the trip. They had to figure out what A L L the costs would be, how things would be paid for, how the payments would be made, how the funds would be split up, etc. We made them come to an agreement before we made any real plans, or paid for anything.

They decided on the 5-day base YES ticket. They wanted to be able to do each park, and really wanted to do MK twice. They had decided on taking 2 YES classes during the 5 days. So we had to make sure to add the $35 pp for the addition YES class.

We are doing the dining plan. The regular dining. We are not doing the meal vouchers for 2 main reasons : Price and choices.

Price : we looked the vouchers and the girls decided the value wasn't there for them. The girls realized that you pretty much have to order the most expensive entree, dessert and drink at each counter service to get your moneys worth. That means even ordering the most expensive thing, even if it's not what you are really wanting.

Choices : they really wanted to do some table services, they wanted to have some nice dinners, so they've picked Chefs De France, Cali Grill, GF Cafe, along with Tusker, Crystal Palace, Sci-Fi, and 1900 Park Fare.

We are very very very lucky to have a DVC family in our troop. And we were given the awesome gift of being allowed to stay in their villa. If it weren't for this opportunity, we would have either had to do more fundraisers or save for another year.

Lastly, by going under the YES program would be the ONLY way our council would approve the trip. They would not have let us go, if it had been just going to Disney for going to Disney.

I agree about the fundraising. If we do any fundraisers part of the money has to go to the council and the GSofUSA. What we can do is have a yard sale as parents and we donate the money to the troop. Since the troop can accept donations.

 

[Shanna-like-Banana]

I agree about the fundraising. If we do any fundraisers part of the money has to go to the council and the GSofUSA. What we can do is have a yard sale as parents and we donate the money to the troop. Since the troop can accept donations.

Believe me, our council has thought of e v e r y t h i n g, we're not allowed to accept donations over $100 or gift in kind. If it's over the $100 you have to get solicitation approval, the donation then has to be written to the GS council, which of course they take a cut and then hold your money for you and only let you use it on very specific certain events, items, activities, etc. But ya know, that's all based on if you even get the solicitation approval.

 

[TinaLala]

Believe me, our council has thought of e v e r y t h i n g, we're not allowed to accept donations over $100 or gift in kind. If it's over the $100 you have to get solicitation approval, the donation then has to be written to the GS council, which of course they take a cut and then hold your money for you and only let you use it on very specific certain events, items, activities, etc. But ya know, that's all based on if you even get the solicitation approval.

Council taking a cut is OUTRAGEOUS! The money they take from the cookies is bad enough. We can accept donations over $250, but it has to be sent to council so the donator gets a tax form at end of the year. The funds were donated to the troop not council! This frustrates me. Scouts work too darn hard to raise a tiny amount of money and then council and GSUS a wants a cut.

Ok. Our trip is tickets, hotel, food and flights. Right now I've estimated total cost for four day trip to be $1000 per scout. We figure two years to fundraise, scouts raise funds via services and parents deposit we should be able to raise the funds. Fingers crossed. The scouts will plan each day. I might split them up by park and have them talk about attractions and plan out the days.

 

[jrhmc]

My troop has worked for 2 years to earn the money to go this August and yes, about $1000 per girl is what we ended up with. That includes travel, food, on-site hotel, YES tickets, insurance, and spending money (not much but some since it was important to the girls). We added to our cookie money by selling water bottles for camp, participating in Lemonade Day, and having a workshop for other girls. The majority of the girls' money was earned through cookie sales, though. They sold over 18,000 boxes over the last 2 years with only 10 girls. Their motivation and persistence was amazing with the incentive of a week at Disney. The parents have done separate fund raisers since most of my parents are coming with us. We've done flamingo flocking, direct sales parties, and garage sales and we're still working for some of the parents. I think it'll be worth it! We'll be bridging to Cadettes at Epcot on our first full day in the parks.

 

[TinaLala]

My troop has worked for 2 years to earn the money to go this August and yes, about $1000 per girl is what we ended up with. That includes travel, food, on-site hotel, YES tickets, insurance, and spending money (not much but some since it was important to the girls). We added to our cookie money by selling water bottles for camp, participating in Lemonade Day, and having a workshop for other girls. The majority of the girls' money was earned through cookie sales, though. They sold over 18,000 boxes over the last 2 years with only 10 girls. Their motivation and persistence was amazing with the incentive of a week at Disney. The parents have done separate fund raisers since most of my parents are coming with us. We've done flamingo flocking, direct sales parties, and garage sales and we're still working for some of the parents. I think it'll be worth it! We'll be bridging to Cadettes at Epcot on our first full day in the parks.

That's so great to hear that someone else was able to raise all the money. Did you have your parents pay a deposit or sign a contract? I'm working on my contract and getting council approval for it and then in the fall I'm going to have the parents make a deposit. It's hard a lot of the fundraising that we seem to be doing isn't giving us a lot of profit but is giving the scouts a lot of experience and sometimes that's what it's all about.

A friend took her students on the yes program and they used the food program instead of the vouchers the food was actually on a card like a gift card, sounded like a better way to go then the vouchers I think that's what we're going to do.

Where are you ending up for your hotel I think were looking at other pop century or one of the All-Stars?

Bridging at Epcot that sounds pretty cool that's a memory they will never forget way to go!

 

[TinaLala]

Sadly it looks like another fundraiser my scouts didnt work hard enough for. So frustrated. We're doing an Applebees pancake breakfast next weekend and some of my scouts didnt even sell the tickets. We could have made $2,000 now we'll be lucky to make $200.

How do you get scouts to fundraise more? I've started to talk about the Disney trip in our meetings more, thinking that will help. Ugh!

 

[jrhmc]

We are a very close troop and I really haven't had any problems getting the parents to pay up so I didn't require any deposit. Over half of the parents have paid in full already and everyone is on track to pay by the deadline. We're just doing the Disney Gift cards from Target to pay for food since that way I was able to give them the incentive of using the cards for shopping if they have money left over on the last day. I have a few girls who have expensive food tastes so I'm trying to encourage budgeting. Our fundraising stuff has been a bit of a bust, too, but with cookie sales being so good, we haven't had to worry much. We're staying at Art of Animation in the Nemo suites so I only needed 6 in the room chaperones with 11 girls.

 

[TinaLala]

Just had an awesome meeting last night with troop. I had planned on doing chocolate dipped pretzels for bake sale this weekend. Had scout ask to do Disney talk, turned into character dining discussion. Agreed to make our own autograph books. Then someone asked about Mine ride so I pulled up video on my phone and we watched it. Then we watched splash mountain video. Then we started to watch haunted mansion video, but we turned lights out and gathered around my phone and watched. So much fun!

Wanted to buy scouts Mickey ears but so expensive $200 total, but I found a template on pinterest for headband ears. Going to make one up and show scouts cuz they really want to do their own ears.

Applebees flapjack fundraiser on Saturday, so far we've raised $450 but hoping for more day of.

 

[dpswift]

Yes fundraising can be an issue. But I feel that $1000 is definately doable. For 2 years in a row DS was able to earn the $450 for boyscout camp easily and had money left over. This year the parents were not into fundraising and he earned only a couple of hundred.

I think that Disney would be a great motivator.

It is too bad that you cannot do your garage sale as a group. People are much more generous to groups than individuals. Council can be such a pain.

A troop around us went and they stayed in an offsite hotel.

 

[TinaLala]

I was surprised to hear a council took a % of a troops fundraising. It's hard enough to supply the paperwork and do the fundraising without council taking money from the scouts on top of it. I feel bogged down with paperwork right now for fundraising.

Was anyone able to do a character meal on top of their the yes program. plus what types of yes programs did you do, we haven't voted yet.

 

[jrhmc]

My girls picked to have spending money over a character meal. We're doing Principles of Animal Behavior.