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Fireworks stands for money?


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The closest my old troop came to selling fireworks was having us scouts sell Olin road flares door-to-door.

 

Now that's a product I would have gladly sold as a scout!

 

(I was a scout in the pre-popcorn days.)

 

Candy bars:  ugh.

Tickets to local events:  blah.

Fireworks:  good times, good sales.

Christmas trees:  weather wasn't always great but like fireworks, the troop worked hard for a short time span.  Then the rest of the year, money in the bank.

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We have to pick our fundraisers carefully since there are so many units locally. BSA units selling the usual council-level stuff tend to tread on each other, making profitable fundraisers hard to come by. Also, it seems most of the usual fundraisers are incredibly labor-intensive versus the ROI. Popcorn is the worst.

  • Popcorn: Can't sell because we compete with a dozen Packs around us. What person is going to buy from a spotty teenager when they can buy from the cherub-faced Cub? Our sales have always been miserable so we gave up. High degree of management, low ROI.
     
  • Xmas Greens: Good for us. Few competitors. Low management and fulfillment. Decent ROI.
     
  • Camp Cards: Debit card-sized discount card for select vendors locally. Usually tagged directly to one of the big supermarket chains so that if you buy one you get your money back (% discount) immediately if you shop at the super market. Low management, zero fulfillment, high ROI.
     
  • Flowers: We have a local vendor who sells flats of flowers (think Home Depot but cheaper and better). $20/flat with $8 back to the Scout. One day fulfillment, high ROI.
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The closest my old troop came to selling fireworks was having us scouts sell Olin road flares door-to-door. 

 

I remember selling Olin road flares door-to-door too.

 

Never sold fireworks but all the Cub Scout Packs and Brownie Dens (?) would coordinate with the local Jaycees to canvas the entire city of 20K people to collect for that years fireworks display.  The Jaycees did that for 5 years until some grand poobah or other decided that it would be less risky to send the older Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts out to collect instead.  Never underestimate the power of cute kids versus gangly pre-teens and teenagers - collections dropped by almost half that year - the next year it was back to Cub Scouts and Brownies going door-to-door.  Worked well until the Jaycees folded.

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We sold one time use stove-top fire extinguishers.  If something caught fire on the stove, grab the can and spray.  Worked really good for grease fires.  I have no idea whether any of them sold or not but the idea was good.

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The closest my old troop came to selling fireworks was having us scouts sell Olin road flares door-to-door. 

 

Can anyone imagine selling road flares door-to-door these days?  How many people really know what a road flare is anymore?  How many stories about Scouts being detained on suspicion of carrying a terrorism device do you think would be generated?

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