How can one make suggestions when one cannot see the house structure, or colour? What is that structure in the photo? It is difficult to make out if if is a sculpture from wood, stone, or what?

Over 30 years ago, one of my famer parishioners raised turnips. When they were harvesting, their marketer wanted only smallish ones, and they hadn't been able to get into the field at the right time, due to ongoing rain, so were sorting them, throwing the oversized ones into a pile on a wagon. When I asked what they planned to do with them, they told me that they were going to pull the wagon back to the bush and dump them.(That's "bush" as in agglomeration of trees - not as a surname). I was connected with a couple of Parents Without Partners groups at that time and they needed some funds for their projects, plus a number of the members were rather pushed for funds, and I asked the farmer whether I could have some of the oversized turnips that the PWP groups could use either as a fundraiser, or for the members to use at home. They were happy to let me take as many as I could handle. The PWP groups were pleased, as there wasn't any concern as to what to do with the residue: just cook 'em, and eat 'em! In which situation ... the only residue was the peelings ... which were useful, for folks who had composters. ole joyfuelled ... who won't turn-ip his nose at turnip

If this is the first time for doing this and you have just over three weeks to organize and pull it off, limit what you do so that you can be sure to do it well. . Keep it simpler and you will be more successful and be able to build in the future. It sounds like you are responsible for getting pricing for the groceries, but also at least to some degree determining the menu and what those groceries will be. Pancakes, butter and syrup are given. Do you want to provide vegan or GF options or figure that GF folks will expect pancakes not to be their thing and be satisfied with generic pancakes being vegetarian? If you do decide to provide GF and/or vegan options, I would say so on any publicity for the event. Since it is a dinner, you could consider adding eggs for more protein/substance, and it could be a GF option. Scrambled are easiest -- and you may be buying eggs for the pancakes. Bacon is great, but it is harder to cook a lot of it to correct doneness and it is messier. Sausage or ham are easier to deal with for crowds. Since this is Shrove Tuesday aka Fat Tuesday, it might be fun to have whipped cream, chocolate chips and some berries. The baked apples sound good too, but both of these could reduce baked good sales if you want to add the bake sale on the side. Decide whether you would rather have just the dinner and both provide and charge a bit more or do the bake sale. I have also seen dessert auctions where towards the end of the meal, people bid on a whole cake or pie. This works best with family events where folks tend to come for the entire event rather than just come, eat and go. You could adapt the idea to coffee cakes, muffins and other take home items since many will have had all the sweet they can handle with pancakes and syrup -- with or without whipped cream, etc. You can do some pricing online. Sam's allows you to shop online and pick up at the warehouse, so you should be able to shop and price their options online. I think Walmart does also, though not all items may be in stock at the stores, so you might have to order in advance. Costco has different pricing online and I'm not sure they have the same order and pick up. They also don't typically give prices over the phone. If you were starting 6 months out, you could do a lot more research (mixes, scratch recipes, stores, etc. -- and maybe drive yourself nuts with it all, but given what you said about Krusteaz, I decided to take a look. Interestingly, Sam's and Walmart both have Krusteaz Buttermilk complete 10 lb bags with pricing shown online -- and Walmart runs slightly cheaper than Sam's -- about $7.50 vs $8. The info says that makes 240 pancakes (not what size) and all you add is water -- so that is your total cost for pancakes. The nutritional info says 90 servings per bag -- I'd guess you might do larger pancakes for dinner and maybe serrve as few as 50 guests peer bag -- but that's still 15 cents per person. And Krusteaz will reimburse half of that? I would go buy a smaller box of the mix and make a test batch this weekend. If you are happy with them, I'd stop worrying about the pancakes and move on. You can hardly make it easier or cheaper than that. Move on to sausage or ham, syrup, butter, plates, napkins, forks and knives and beverage options (since it's dinnerr, you can get away with iced tea, lemonade and water -- maybe add coffee) then decide if you want to add anything else. Have you set a price for the dinner? Do you have any idea how many people you might be serving? Will you sell tickets in advance (helps you can get an idea -- rough idea if you also do at the door sales)? I think you probably have enough to deal with without trying to get sponsorships or donations -- I would consider those things to consider adding next year. Those things take more time than you have to do successfully. You often have to go back, call and follow up a number of times to get an answer or work out details. Have I made this long enough to lose you yet? LOL Sorry

No worries, DC. I just thought you'd like to know. PM, political fundraisers often look cheap on purpose. The food looks good quality and nicely prepared, but the foil and plastic reassures donors. I wish charitable were like that, where there's a lot of la-di-dah-ness and the events sometimes barely pay for themselves. I loved the one everybody was doing in the '90's where they sent a teabag and asked you to stay home and make your own tea so they could put all the money toward the cause. People give more when there's a fancy event, however. Whereas in political, the candidate/cause leader has to look and act like an everyman and very approachable, even when it costs five figures to actually get to talk to them. (I was stuck on a fundraising committee for awhile and took classes, and now I'm a bit jaded.)