Car Wash Fund Raiser

For my daughter Joanie's 6th birthday we had a Car Wash Fund Raiser.  My daughter loves having friends to celebrate her birthday, but most parents will agree, we just didn't need 15-20 more toys in our house.  We have so much already, that we decided to share.  Joanie was watching Zoom on PBS and saw them showcase kids doing fund raisers.  She said she wanted to try a car wash.  So, we decided to combine her summer birthday with the fund raiser. I contacted the local Children's Hospital and they said that they needed books, videos and new stuffed animals for the children in the hospital. We sent out invitations telling the guests how we came up with the idea and asked the kids to bring an adult with a car that we could wash.  Instead of bringing a present for Joanie, we asked for a small donation for washing their cars.  The kids all wore bathing suits and water shoes and had a blast washing cars. At times there were as many as 10 kids plus adults working on one car, just having so much fun.  We had parents and friends help with the washing. After we washed cars then we set the sprinkler out for the kids.  Next we had water related games.   We had a water balloon toss.  Then we had a bucket filling game.  We filled large buckets with water and about 10 sponges.  The kids all stood in teams behind their bucket, then one at a time they would grab a sponge, run to a smaller bucket about 10 feet away, wring out their sponge in the smaller bucket then race back and throw their sponge in the large bucket and the next person would go.  The team filling their small bucket first won.  We also had a water balloon game where the kids tried to throw or roll a water balloon into the center of a hula-hoop without breaking the balloon.  Then to wrap up we had to have birthday cake too! My husband's family in California liked the idea too and some of his nieces are washing cars in their neighborhood and sending us the money.  Some donations are still coming in the mail from family and friends, but so far we have raised $410 for the hospital.  The parents loved the idea, the kids had so much fun and the hospital will have a lot of new books, videos and stuffed animals.  Everyone was a winner!