The Mother/Daughter Luncheon and Style Show

Highlands High School
Ft. Thomas, Ky.
Lisa Birkley, Adviser

It came about from a need for some additional funding due to poor ad sales three years ago. The staff and I had a roundtable discussion about new ideas. I told the staff about my own high school experience when my all-girl school had a banquet that celebrated the relationship between mothers and daughters. I discussed it with my staff and a new tradition was born.

The Show
We decided to have it on a Sunday afternoon in February when it seemed spring would never get here. We contacted a local dress shop that agreed to supply the outfits for the girls in journalism to model.  Also, we used a local hall in our small town. It was a perfect time to bring out the new spring fashions just before our spring break. We even had the moms doing some modeling as well. We could not forget about the boys on staff as well. We contacted the local tuxedo company and made a deal with them for some free rentals in exchange for some advertising around Prom time. The boys looked awesome as they worked the room selling raffle tickets and escorting the girls in their evening gowns.

The Luncheon
We kept the menus simple – pasta! It was easy and inexpensive. We coupled it with a salad bar and all the ladies were very pleased.  And of course we had to have chocolate and lots of it. We contacted some local bakeries and pastry shops and let them advertise at the lunch as well as some free advertising in the newspaper.

The Prizes
We went with baskets. We asked each club, group and sport to assemble a basket full of things that girls would like. For example, the Student Council did a weekend stay in a local hotel, dinner and movie tickets. The girls’ soccer team did a soccer basket with all kinds of sportswear, balls and gift certificate for a local gym. I asked these clubs and teams to contribute because the yearbook and newspaper features all them at some point. They needed to help make the coverage even better.  It was unbelievable what the kids came up with for baskets. The National Honor Society offered service hours if their members contributed a basket.

We ended up with more than 50 gorgeous baskets full of wonderfully girl-power items. We divided the baskets into two groups. Half of the baskets were raffled and we sold tickets throughout the lunch. The other half was actually auctioned off by a live auctioneer. The auctioneer alone brought in $2,000 and an hour of pure entertainment. He brought everyone to their feet and checkbooks out of purses. He waived his fee for the cause and we gave him some prime advertising in our magazine.

We also had one grand prize we gave away. Last year it was a laptop computer from Dell. They were able to give us some money off because it was for a non-profit organization. We sold tickets for that for about a month prior to the luncheon.

The Profit
It has taken a few years for this event to get off the ground. The first year we cleared about $1,500. Last year’s total profit was about $2,000. We had about 150 moms, daughters, aunts, grandmas and friends the first year and last year we had about 200 in attendance. Actually, we were not sure if we were going to do it last year, but the moms and daughters were so excited about coming again we decided to do it just for the fun of the day. It is a rare occasion for moms and daughters to come together and celebrate.

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