Apply for a grant from local foundations or business coalitions, for funds to use toward your Pi Day celebration. It’s been done successfully by many schools!
» Foundations that have given money for Pi Day include: The Quincy School-Community Partnership (a coalition of 128 businesses, based in Quincy, MA).
Hold a pie-baking contest, where students and teachers bake and submit pies to a panel of judges, maybe drawn from the community. Raise money for a charity or your math club by selling the remaining slices of each pie.
» Teachers at Schroeder M.S. in Grand Forks, ND raised $125 for their local Humane Society through a Pi Day pie bakeoff they called the “Power of Pie” contest. Judging of the 22 pies was done by the newspaper’s food editor, and a few community leaders. Aside from the overall winners, ribbons were also given to the Best Presentation and Ugliest Pie.
Raise money through an auction of donated homemade pies, given by teachers and parents.
» A total of $1,050 was raised for charity by a Ft. Myers, FL school on Pi Day 2005. A single pie, toasted coconut pecan, went for $55!
Have students toss cream pies at the faces of teachers or administrators. Make sure to charge a buck or two for each toss to raise money for charity; they’ll certainly pay it!
Hold a “round coin” collection drive, asking everyone to, well, toss some circles in the jar. Maybe, in the end, count up the coins (by type, of course) and add up their total surface area?
» Leon H.S. in Tallahassee, FL raised $286 this way for the March of Dimes.
Challenge students to bring in at least 314 cans of food per grade level. If they do, let them hit you with a pie!
» That’s how Paris Gibson M.S. in Great Falls, MT was able to collect more than 1,700 cans on one recent Pi Day.