Tabitha Wood’s house on the east end of Council Bluffs was the talk of neighborhood earlier this week.
Wood woke up to an unusual object outside her home: a bright-orange toilet.
“The first reaction was just wondering who put it there,” she said. “It was pretty fun.”
Teenagers had delivered the fixture to Wood’s porch overnight. It came with a sign explaining it is a fundraiser for Thomas Jefferson High School’s post-prom.
“It was pretty fun,” Wood said. “I think it is pretty clever and people get a kick out of it.”
Three toilets are circulating throughout the Council Bluffs Community School District, with two in Council Bluffs and one in Carter Lake, said Jen Clark, an administrative assistant at T.J. who works with students organizing post-prom.
The idea came from image sharing website Pinterest, although Abraham Lincoln High School students have done a similar fundraiser in the past as well. Clark said this is the first time she’s aware of T.J. using toilets to flush out donations from the community.
Those receiving the toilet on their lawn or porch are asked to contribute $10 to have students come haul it away. For $20, they can choose a friend or neighbor to have the toilet delivered to, while a $30 donation buys insurance that it won’t make a return visit.
Clark said the toilets will continue circulating into March. Prom is scheduled for April 1, so the final preparations for post-prom will wrap up in advance of the dance.
The toilet deliveries will be in addition to other fundraisers for the event, which gives students somewhere safe to spend the evening after the culminating school social event of the year.
No specific goal for the fundraiser was set, since it was the first time T.J. did it, Clark said.
“This has, I think, exceeded their expectations because everyone has been more than generous,” she said, adding that people have given $50 or $100 – not the minimum of $30 – to buy the “insurance” to keep the toilet from coming back a second time.
Woods opted for the $10 donation, noting that her son attends A.L. But Superintendent Martha Bruckner was among those who bought the piece of mind.
The toilet read “you’ve been dumped on,” Bruckner said, after finding a bright black-and-orange toilet in her driveway on Monday. She described the fundraiser as a variation of teens “TPing” someone’s house with toilet paper, except it was a harmless way to get some attention and donations.
Bruckner said she paid to have the toilet delivered to Deb Goodman, a curriculum coach at T.J. who lives close to her house. Those receiving the toilets are given an anonymous number to call to make their pledge and set up a transfer of the fixture.
Clark said the students are receiving a positive response so far.
“The group thought this might be something different than the typical candy bar sales or something like that,” Clark said. “They’ve done really well. People seem to think it’s pretty funny.”
source: http://www.nonpareilonline.com/news/local/toilet-humor-draws-donations-for-thomas-jefferson-high-school/article_22315940-f97c-11e6-8a07-278ae2941dfd.html
by Scott Stewart & Krystal Sidzyik
http://www.thisoldtoilet.com
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