With all the state and local cuts slicing into the school budgets, I'm sure there is going to be a frenzy of fundraising this year. I can already see that look in the eyes of my childless co-workers', like jittery squirrels ready to leap into the stairwell if they see me coming with a packet of expensive gift wrap to sell them. Don't worry, guys, I'm not going to do that to you. But would you like to see the P.E. coach kiss a pig? I'm sure the grinchiest office mate would pay a buck for that.

The recent issue of Scholastic's Parent & Child magazine has a nice collection of innovative twists on the traditional fundraiser. Most of them are short on overhead and long on fun, from throwing a huge garage sale to taking the annual auction online. Maybe it's my own snarky self, but I like the ones where the principal lets the kids duct tape him to the wall or, this one from a California principal:

You’ll generate endless hilarity — and a good bit of cash — with this money-making idea. Oswalt Academy in Walnut, CA, hosted a Kiss the Pig fundraiser in which students and community members voted for which teachers, one per grade level, would have to wear a pig nose and kiss a 90-pound pig during an all-school assembly. Each vote cost one dollar, and the teacher with the most votes . . . won?

-- Sharon Kennedy Wynne