A roller skating party, Fabulous Fifties Family Night, Big 10 football parking, perennial sales and homemade tamales, potato chips and candy–youth groups are known for creativity when it comes to raising funds to cover convention costs.

And they need to be, as getting to convention can be expensive. First comes the early registration fee: $50. Then there are meal tickets: $188. Transportation can total $400 or more per person. Lodging adds a few hundred dollars. Extras include service project fees, T-shirts, choir music and a convention DVD.

To go to convention, many youth groups participate in fund raising–early and often.

Tabor Mennonite Church in Newton, Kan., and Casa del Alfarero (The Potter’s House) in Pasadena, Texas, have been partner congregations for three years, so it made sense to combine resources to help each other with convention fund raising. Casa del Alfarero made 160 dozen tamales, while Tabor Mennonite filled orders and sold them. The tamale sales raised half of the money needed to cover convention costs for Casa del Alfarero, which “was a tremendous help and a blessing,” said Christian Baeza, a leader of the youth from Casa del Alfarero.

For 25 years running, Iowa’s Lower Deer Creek Mennonite Church has relied on a winning combination of three fundraisers. In the fall, the youth earn $1,500 to $2,000 selling homemade potato chips, hot dogs and specialty sodas including sarsaparilla at an annual fall festival held in Kalona, Iowa. In December, they sell Christmas greenery, and every other month the group cooks a meal at the church.

Mary Stutzman, Lower Deer Creek youth sponsor, said that fund raising has multiple benefits. “The youth take ownership in the trip. They enjoy working together and there is something fun about it,” she said. “It’s just a good camaraderie thing; it builds unity within the group, and [also] brings out leadership skills. The youth also talk to people they don’t know from school or other places.”

First Mennonite Church of Iowa City, Iowa, took advantage of its location. The church is only three blocks from Kinnick Stadium, where the Big 10 Iowa Hawkeyes play their home football games. Since the church owns a large property, the youth group parks cars for people attending the football games. Brenda Litwiler, one of the youth sponsors at First Mennonite, said, “On a typical Saturday, we average 500 cars, give or take. At $15 a car—much more for RV’s—we do pretty well. You do the math!”

That math is, in fact, around $7,500 per game. Though the earnings are impressive, the youth sometimes grumble. “It involves getting up very early, [by] the youths’ standards, and standing out in the cold, rain or immense heat for many hours and dealing with people who may or may not be happy with the parking situations,” explained Litwiler. Each person works four games during a season. By dividing up the season that way, the youth group is able to raise enough money to send everyone to the convention, and still tithe 10 percent to the church.

Harrisonburg (Va.) Mennonite Church sometimes sends as many as 80 people to convention, which requires multiple fundraisers. This year, though, they number 45. A pancake lunch and servant auction raises around $3,000 in the fall. At Christmas, the youth group takes homemade goodies to each Sunday school class as a “Coffee Break,” with donations bringing in another  $2,000 or so. January brings a potato bar and the spring  a coin drive, both of which raise somewhere around $2,000 each.

Glen Guyton, youth pastor of Calvary Community Church in Hampton, Va., recommends creativity. He said, “We particularly involve food and fun, because those are two things people don’t mind paying for.” In the food category, the youth group operates soda and snack machines at the church, and they sell homemade cookies every Sunday.

For fun, the Calvary Community youth group rents a roller skating rink for two hours. Youth invite their friends, who pay a small fee. A party at the rink can net $200 or more.

The church’s Fabulous Fifties Family Night brings in people from across the community for 50s music, hamburgers, chicken strips and apple pie.

Guyton said Chick-fil-A also boosts revenue. “You get 15 percent of the proceeds depending on how many people you invite to Chick-fil-A,” he said. “Over 200 people come out to our family night. The cow even came to church. We passed out fliers, and for dinner our Bible study went and ate at Chick-fil-A.”

Silverwood Mennonite Church of Goshen, Ind., is known for selling perennial sale. “Come spring, people simply split their plants that are coming up and donate them to us so we can sell them,” says Janice Troyer, the youth ministry leader. At the sale, which is always held on Mother’s Day weekend, the youth help sell the plants and deliver them to buyers’ cars.

“In the past we have made between $1,800-2,000,” Troyer said. “The other great thing about this fundraiser is that it pulls in a lot of community people rather than just hitting up our congregation for funds.”

Silverwood is also a confectioner. The youth pre-sell four different kinds of candy—by the pound—starting at the beginning of November; in December, the group makes peanut brittle, peanut clusters, chocolate peanut brittle crunch and chocolate caramels. “[Making the candy] is quite a production, but we really have it down to a system that works well and efficiently,” Troyer said.

The day is divided into two 4-hour shifts, and each youth group member must work one of the shifts if they want to attend convention. The goal is to make as much chocolate to fill the existing orders, and then make extra to sell later.  Silverwood usually makes around 600 to 700 pounds a year. This year the sale earned $2,600.