Eco-friendly gifts and prizes for your Christmas Fair

PTAs Fundraising

13 November 2019

Santa’s Grotto, the lucky dip and games tables are all popular stalls at anyone’s Christmas Fair, but what do you give out as gifts and prizes? With many schools and PTAs trying to reduce the amount of plastic that they give out (and cut costs at the same time), we’ve looked at some of the alternative options out there and some different ways of viewing how you give out prizes…

Vouchers

A great prize it so provide vouchers for other stands – think a free cone of popcorn, a go on the toy tombola or a round of hoop-a-duck. You could design tokens to give out to the kids for various stalls, and then no actual prizes are having to exchange hands.

Prize Cards

If you don’t want to be give out lots of small, plastic gifts, then why not introduce prize cards. You can then invest in some more substantial gifts that the children can collect stamps at various stalls to get. You can download our prize card template here.

Recycle

Everyone has a pile of unwanted gifts, random prizes from magazines or certain toys from a well-established fast food restaurant that are just sitting around gathering dust. Ask the parents at your school to donate these, as what’s someone else’s unwanted things, is another person’s gold (or something to donate again to next year’s fair!). You can also re-purpose any donated books as gifts, as there are always loads left over otherwise.

Old school

Going a bit old school with your prizes is a way of making them more eco-friendly. Buy up wooden, mini games of dominoes, pickup sticks and noughts and crosses; or skipping ropes and yoyos! Although these might seem a little old fashioned, they produce hours of fun for kids.

Foodie gifts

These aren’t obviously always an option at every school, but sweets, biscuits and chocolate are all easy lucky dip prizes and go down well with kids! Make treats for their Christmas tree at home, or fill a jar with sweets if you want a larger gifts.

Homemade

Ask in your newsletter or on social media if any parents are particularly crafty and if they’d be happy to make some gifts to hand out. From the simple, like saving old takeaway tubs and filling them with slime, to the more adventurous like sewing purses, you will be surprised at how many parents will be happy to get stuck in!