Financial state of classes

As the year comes to an end, each class is looking at its standing regarding its financial state.

The freshman class has had a successful year, fundraising more than $10,000. The freshmen have done a variety of activities to build their funds, including a Parent Night, movie night and participation in the holiday  boutique. 

“For next year, we plan on continuing our fundraising philosophy to have a few very large fundraisers that bring in a significant amount of income instead of many small fundraisers,” freshman class treasurer Spencer Yen said.

Yen is proud that the class of 2016 has raised a substantial amount of money, greatly surpassing expectations. Yen is not worried about future years because the substantial amount of money they raised this year will give them a cushion and boost.

“By starting early to raise money, we hope to be extremely successful in future Homecomings, proms, etc.,” Yen said.

As the freshmen were working hard to build their class fund, the sophomores raised about  $2,000. 

“The sophomore class financial state is not that great this year, but we will make it better by next year,” sophomore class treasurer Adrienne Kim said.

The sophomore class had many small fundraisers this year, but few of them raised much money. The majority of the sophomore fund came from Parent Night at the beginning of the year. The most recent fundraiser the sophomore class held was a pearl milk tea sale after school.

Kim said the sophomore class is not in the best shape for prom next year, but it will fundraise during the beginning of junior year.

“The outlook for next year is that we should not hold things off until the last minute and do as many fundraisers as possible,” Kim said.

Although the sophomore class is having some financial difficulties, the junior class has raised about $8,000 in its fund. 

According to junior class president Anup Kar, the junior class has not held any fundraisers lately because Saratoga Idol and the donations the junior class received were a huge success.

The junior class also made some extra money at prom  because more people than expected attended.

The junior class also has a lei fundraiser, an event that the junior class manages every year for graduating seniors, which should raise more money for its fund. Kar said the junior class might donate the profits to charity. 

“The financial outlook is cruising for our senior class; we are going to have the best and cheapest prom in quite a while,” Kar said.

With all the money the junior class has raised these past years, the junior class is confident with where it stands financially.

“The junior class has always been on top of it and I am glad that we could take what we had and turn it into some profit,” Kar said.

As the junior class wraps up the year with good fundraising, the senior class raised $7,200 this year and still has about $10,000 left in its fund after all its expenses.

For its junior prom last year, the senior class lost about $1,000 because there was not enough attendees. This set the fund back to $6,000.

“With that money to start off with, and a lot of fundraising, we were able to plan a great prom, but also decrease the prices of bids,” senior class president Evelyn Lee said.

The senior class planned a fundraiser for each month, which included bake sales and an SAT book sale. Along with the many small fundraisers each month, the senior class also managed to organize a mixer and a raffle at a football game.

“Fundraisers aren’t as easy to plan as they might seem, and the fact that we were able to consistently put out at least one fundraiser each month is something I’m so proud of,” Lee said.

With all these fundraisers, the senior class was able to lower prom bids by $24, which amounts to a total of $7,200 saved for students since the senior class sold 300 bids.

Looking back on the past four years, Lee said that the senior class struggled financially as underclassmen, but those struggles brought the class to where it is today. 

Something Lee would advise underclassmen to do is to fundraise early because it really helps when large sums of money is needed.

With about $10,000 left in their fund, seniors plan to save it for future class reunions.

“We have definitely come a long way since freshman year and I’m so relieved we can happily graduate knowing we have left out account with stable funds,” Lee said.