Bottle Drives
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Sample Bottle-Drive Flyer

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Popcorn

Believe it or not, some people do love popcorn and some boys do love to sell it. We have three Scouts in our Troop that sell more than a thousand dollars worth a year. With the cash percentage and the significant added "Scout Bucks," the few Scouts who do participate make a GOOD chunk of change! The claim that some Troops make all of their yearly income needs on this one fund-raiser alone is true, and this is worth considering.

Christmas Wreaths

There is something intrinsically appealing to me about these.  What's not to love? To extend your appeal to non-Christians, you might look up the history of the practice and tell this story in your brochure. Bringing evergreens indoors around the solstice significantly predates the Christian adaptation of this tradition.

The trick is find a dependable local supplier, but they do exist. I remember driving about an hour each way once a year to a rented storage facility, where we would pick them up on an arranged Saturday morning. My van would smell like evergreens for weeks afterwards. You might ask Commissioners, or other Scouters at Roundtables, as it is a common enough fund-raising effort, and there are some very good suppliers out there.

Deposit Bottles

Are "deposit bottle drives" possible in your state? Once every 2 or 3 months our Scouts leaflet about 2,000 homes with something like the following:

Next Saturday:

DEPOSIT BOTTLE SPRING CLEAN UP!

Help the Hard-Working Boy Scouts Earn Their Own Way to Camp!

Would you consider leaving your deposit cans and bottles out on your front steps for us next Saturday Morning? We will begin at 9:00 A.M. (date).

The Scouts of Troop XXX thank you for your past and continuing support of Scouting in the Boys' own neighborhood!

Questions? 

Call our Committee Chairman Xxxxxxxx Xxxxxxxxxx at XXX-XXXX.

The next weekend we collect the deposit bottles, as announced. A surprisingly large number of people left them out for us. 

I always had a theme of some sort, like "helping" them clear space in their garage in the Autumn, New Year's Post-Party Clean-Up, Super Bowl, Spring Cleaning, etc.

We would net about $500 in return bottles & cans for these two Saturdays' worth of work. The better the wording on your flyer, the more people leave stuff for you, and if you do it on a regular basis, some people will save their bottles for you.

In New York State, try to get a vender number with the recycling agency, so that they will send a truck to your house to pick up the bottles. They then check the count at their warehouse, and deposit the money in your account (this beats taking 10,000 containers to the corner store).

I also started including on the flyer, a "Wish List" of things like used sleeping bags, old camp-stoves and camping gear, warm boy's outdoor clothing, and (my favorite), food dehydrators. 

I would give instructions to call ahead for a pick-up if they needed a receipt. I always included a reminder of how many days were left in the year to donate to a non-profit group for next year's taxes. A lot of people just left the stuff on the doorstep with the bottles. This was a surprisingly successful sideline in itself, as our ability to camp had previously been limited by the clothing that the Scouts' parents could afford. Good used boots and food dehydrators added a new dimension to our summer back-packing and winter tent-camping activities!