What it costs to run
3 cohorts × 8 kids · TK to 5th grade
Costed for eight kids a cohort and twenty-four across the year, in four buckets: the kit that gets bought once and lasts all three cohorts, the consumables that get used up every six weeks, the per-child materials that become the finished pieces, and the show itself. Nothing goes home mid-programme; every piece is held for the show in May. Backups are built in, not hoped for.
Shared studio kit
Brushes, rollers, trays, clay tools, glue guns, scissors, aprons, drop sheets, buckets
Once, all year
$340
Consumables
Tempera, acrylic, ink, paste, tape, glue, decal sheet, flour, tissue, card
$265 × 3 cohorts
$795
Per-child materials
Varies by cohort: A about $14 a child, B $30, C $32, because a basketball and a box frame cost more than a pizza box
8 kids × 3 cohorts
$608
Show costs
Label card, 8 × 10 prints, hanging tape, pins, plinth cloth, juice
Once, May
$180
Opening night
Drinks, snacks, a speaker and somebody’s playlist, gallery lighting and a few hire pieces
Once, May
$220
Backups and breakage
Fifteen per cent on consumables and per-child items: spilled bottles, torn canvases, one extra place
15% of $1,403
$210
Full year, all three cohorts
$2,353
Per cohort as they actually fall: $581 to $999
Per child across the year: $98
Fee at $40 a session: $5,760 a year at full pay
Against the fee
$40 a session × 6 sessions × 8 kids = $1,920 a cohort, $5,760 across the year against $2,353 of cost. The fee is set deliberately high so the waivers are real, not a gesture: even if half of all families take a full waiver, the $2,880 remaining still covers every dollar of cost including the shared kit, with $527 to spare. Tickets, merch, photographs and art sales sit on top of that.
The fee buys art materials and fee waivers, nothing else. Nobody is paid, the room is free, and every dollar that is not spent on paint funds a seat for a child who cannot pay or goes to Dolores Huerta Elementary. At full pay, cohort A clears about $1,146, B about $1,339 and C about $921. That headroom is exactly what the fee waivers spend, which is why the fee sits where it does.
Where it drops Cohort A carries the shared kit and cohort C carries the show, so the three land at about $774, $581 and $999. If only two cohorts run, the year lands at about $1,754. Most of the opening-night line should come back as donations, so it is carried here as a worst case rather than a plan.
Free if you ask Pizza boxes, magazines, old artwork and jars come from families. Ping-pong balls, sponges and bottles are the cheapest line in the whole budget. The two genuinely expensive weeks are basketballs and box frames, so if money is tight those are the two to swap out first.
Does it make sense
Full year · three cohorts
Three scenarios at $40 a session, so the downside is visible next to the upside. The variables are how many of the 24 places fill and how many families take a fee waiver. Costs shrink slightly when fewer kids enrol, because the per-child material line follows the register.
Conservative
18 of 24 places fill · 40% on fee waivers
Paying children11
Fees collected$2,640
Materials and show−$2,179
Fundraising, minimal+$760
Margin to the school
+$1,221
Covers itself in the worst realistic year, kit bought and paid for.
Expected
All 24 places fill · 25% on fee waivers
Paying children18
Fees collected$4,320
Materials and show−$2,353
Fundraising, normal+$2,390
Margin to the school
+$4,357
The realistic case. Roughly one waived seat in four, fully funded.
Aggressive
All 24 fill, small waitlist · 10% on waivers
Paying children22
Fees collected$5,280
Materials and show−$2,353
Fundraising, strong+$4,400
Margin to the school
+$7,327
A well-attended show earns nearly as much as the fees do.
Where the fundraising comes from
All of it to the school
Five income streams, none of them the fee. Merch and photographs are quoted at the school’s share, not the sticker price, so these are the amounts that actually land in the art budget.
Stream
Cons.
Exp.
Aggr.
Tickets
$5 a head, artists free: 60, 120 and 180 paying visitors
$300
$600
$900
Art sales
Flat $25 to $90, families half price on their own child: 5, 18 and 30 pieces
$140
$720
$1,300
Merch
School share $13 to $52 an item: 6, 20 and 36 orders
$110
$440
$860
Photography
School share $14 or $28: 4, 12 and 20 packages
$60
$230
$440
Group pieces
Three sealed-bid lots: the self-portrait board, the parents’ canvas, the sponge mosaic
$150
$400
$900
Total fundraising
On top of every fee already collected
$760
$2,390
$4,400
The one to push Merch is the only stream with no ceiling: a grandparent will buy a $68 sweater with their grandchild’s drawing on it without blinking, and the same drawing can go on a second garment for $9. Twenty orders is a cautious guess for twenty-four families. Tickets, by contrast, are capped by the size of the room.
How the numbers were built The expected column assumes about 120 paying visitors across the eight days the show is open, which is modest for a school of this size, and that three families in four buy something with their kid’s drawing on it.
The break-even line Fees alone cover all costs once 10 of 24 children pay. Past that, every further payment and every dollar of show income is margin for the school. That is the whole reason the fee sits at $40 rather than at cost.
