A simple idea has paid off for Buderim Mountain State School chaplain, Dave Larkin.
The long-serving chappy’s wife, Adrienne, suggested challenging students to bring their spare 5-cent pieces into the classroom each week and compete for a pizza party. Collect 5 Cents for Chappy was born.
In just five weeks, the idea has paid off to the tune of $1400.
“We ordered 50 clear plastic containers and last year, in Term 4, I ran a competition for Year 1, 2, 3 students to draw a picture of Chappy Dave and two of the girls drew these crazy pictures of me so we put those pictures on the containers to advertise Collect 5 Cents for Chappy and it’s really personalised it for the children,” he said.
“It’s taken off and it’s only been going five weeks, but the big winner is it’s passive income. The only thing is you have to collect the money and get it counted and banked.”
Chappy Dave said the fundraiser would continue through Term 2 and he would reassess it at the end of the semester.
“The pizza party might lose its enticement but we’ll see what else we can do,” he said,
Whether or not the initiative continued through to the end of the year, all the money raised will help Chappy Dave provide essential services and programs for his Sunshine Coast school community.
“I’m really blessed in that I’m subsidised a lot by my school to do my extra two days but we still need to do top-up fundraising for programs to be able to support families in different ways,” he said.
“We have a community kitchen to provide frozen meals, emergency accommodation if any families need it, and emergency food vouchers, and resources for programs, so Collect 5 Cents for Chappy is raising that extra money on the top.
“And in five weeks we’ve more than covered the cost of buying the containers, which can be used later on.”