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16+ Spirit Week Ideas for School: Most Thrilling Themes & Activities

16+ Spirit Week Ideas for School: Most Thrilling Themes & Activities

Looking to take your spirit week ideas for school to the next level? Every school has that one week where mismatched socks are celebrated, the principal wears a goofy wig, and someone’s dad shows up in full superhero gear for drop-off. It’s one of the most exciting weeks of the school year!

As a parent or teacher, you want a lineup that feels doable, but also brings out the giggles and spirit pride. Below you will find 16+ super fun theme days, activities that go beyond dress-up, and a step-by-step spirit week planning guide.

Let’s make this year’s spirit week activities and themes a real show-stopper! Spirit week is a themed school event that lasts an entire week (five school days) where students and staff dress up, compete in silly activities, and celebrate school pride.

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How Pacelli Boosters Raised More by Keeping It Simple

How Pacelli Boosters Raised More by Keeping It Simple

Cardinal Pacelli Catholic School is a small school in Cincinnati serving about 420 students from preschool through eighth grade. Like many school communities, much of what happens outside the classroom depends on volunteers. That includes athletics.
The school’s athletics program is volunteer-run, and booster memberships help fund improvements while giving families useful perks throughout the sports season. But the booster program had become more complicated than it needed to be.
One year, the group offered three membership levels: $100, $150 and $500. The lower-cost option was meant to make the program more accessible by removing some of the extras, like booster swag and recognition. Instead, it created confusion.
Some families chose the lower tier and later wondered why they had not received the same benefits as other boosters. Others likely would have purchased the $150 option if the $100 choice had not been there at all.
For a volunteer team already juggling plenty, the extra questions and follow-up were not worth it. Cheddar Up gave the team the flexibility to adjust the collection and make the experience simpler the next time around.

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20 High School Fundraising Ideas for Clubs and Classes

20 High School Fundraising Ideas for Clubs and Classes

The best high school fundraising ideas give students a chance to take the lead. They can dream up the idea, design the merch, spread the word, and make the fundraiser their own. As a bonus, it lightens the load for advisors, teachers, and parent volunteers.
Need a little inspiration? At Cheddar Up, we like to go straight to the source. We looked at fundraisers school groups ran on Cheddar Up during the 2025-26 school year, from Egg My Yard to holiday craft fairs, and pulled together our favorites.
We’ve organized the top 20 ideas by how you want to run your fundraiser, with options for student council and class officers, academic clubs, and schoolwide campaigns. You’ll also find a simple way to collect payments online while students handle the rest.

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End-of-year banquet planning templates

End-of-year banquet planning templates

An end-of-season banquet is the chance to bring everyone together one more time, without the pressure of a practice, game, competition, or performance on the schedule. It’s where teams and groups recognize seniors, hand out awards, thank coaches and volunteers, share favorite moments, and celebrate everything they accomplished together. Sports teams, cheer squads, marching bands, and clubs hold them in the fall, winter, and spring, usually within a few weeks of the season’s end.

This guide covers how to plan an end-of-year or end-of-season banquet step by step, how to sell banquet tickets and collect RSVPs online, and banquet templates that you can customize for your sport or club.

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Easy Elementary School Fundraising Ideas Kids Love and Parents Support

Easy Elementary School Fundraising Ideas Kids Love and Parents Support

Elementary school kids are energetic, playful, and not into anything too complicated, so why should their fundraisers be? The best elementary school fundraising ideas feel like fun for the kids while staying simple for the volunteers who make them happen.
Below are 20 ideas built for elementary schools, grouped by how you want to run them, plus an easy, online way to collect payments.
Elementary school fundraising is different because younger children can be active participants, but they still need adults to take the lead on money, sales, and logistics. The best fundraisers play to both strengths: kids bring the creativity, excitement, and school spirit, while adults keep everything running smoothly.
Take payments, for example. A first grader isn’t going to manage a cash box, make change, or operate a point-of-sale system. Keeping payments with adults (and collecting online when possible) makes it easier to track every dollar, so cash doesn’t get lost in backpacks.
Door-to-door selling can be tricky as well. Young kids need adult supervision, and caregivers may not be comfortable sending them out to sell to strangers. Fundraisers that families can support from home or through a school event tend to make more sense.
So, what can elementary students do? All the fun stuff. They can color posters, run laps, cheer on classmates, perform, create something to sell, or proudly share the fundraiser with family and friends.

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Fun Run Fundraiser: How to Plan One, Plus Ideas and Costs

Fun Run Fundraiser: How to Plan One, Plus Ideas and Costs

Few fundraisers pull a community together like a fun run. If you are weighing a fun run fundraiser for your school or nonprofit, here is the full run-down (yes, pun intended): how to plan it, what it can raise, theme ideas, and how to collect every dollar you earn. A fun run is a walk or run, often themed, where participants raise money for a school or nonprofit by paying an entry fee or collecting pledges for each lap or mile they complete. The goal is participation over speed, so anyone can join regardless of age or ability.
In schools, a fun run is one of the most common PTA fundraising events because it needs little equipment and gets students, teachers, and families moving together. Nonprofits use the same format to raise funds and awareness for a cause.
You can organize a fun run in six steps. Give yourself at least six to eight weeks so you have time to line up volunteers, promote the event, and accept pledges.

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