Cookie Gift Boxes

Our youth group at church needs to raise money for a trip that the members want to make. The trip is to attend a youth rally in the neighboring state. The trip will also include an overnight stay at a large water park close to the rally sight. We have already done some fund raising; but we are trying to come up with new ideas. We have already had a bake sale. This was a good money maker, but we did not know if another one in a short time would be well received. One woman suggested that we make up cookie gift boxes for the holidays.

... we would start with two different sizes of the cookie gift boxes ...

This sounded like an interesting idea. The woman explained that the cookie gift boxes could include what ever variety of cookies we would choose and the boxes could be as elaborate or simple as we wanted to make them. People would purchase the cookie gift boxes to give as gifts or to set out for guests. We decided that we wanted to do this. The kids were excited because most of them enjoy making cookies. We had several weekends before the holidays so we thought we would start with two different sizes of the cookie gift boxes. One size would feature an assortment of two dozen cookies and the larger size would have four dozen. We decided to have three types of cookies. We chose spritz, because several group members had the cookie presses and they are easy and inexpensive to make. Filbert balls because they look nice without having to decorate and the traditional cut out cookies. The kids wanted the cut out cookies so they could have a frosting party in the fellowship area. We want to keep the fund raising activities fun so we agreed to the frosting party.

... We purchased several decorative containers that had holiday themes ...

For the boxes we went to a local cake and candy supply store. They have a variety of containers. We purchased several decorative containers that had holiday themes and then several plain white containers that could be decorated by the youth group members. We made twenty boxes of each size. Our cost for the cookie gift boxes was minimal because most of us donated the ingredients for the cookies. We had priced holiday cookie trays at the local grocery store and bakery and found that they charged over $3.00/dozen. We thought this was expensive but because this was a fund raiser we decided we would charge $8.00 for the small box and $15.00 for the larger box. We thought that we could drop the price the second weekend if they did not sell.

... sold out in minutes the first weekend and had people requesting to be placed on an order list ...

The cookie gift boxes were a huge success. We sold out in minutes the first weekend and had people requesting to be placed on an order list for the second weekend. In addition to selling the cookie gift boxes we placed a donation basket by the pay station. By the end of the third weekend we had raised enough money to pay for the rally and water park costs, with extra money left over for the next event.