Quantities
How much to bake for a school bake sale
For an elementary school of about 400 students, have 330 items. About half the students buy, which is 200 buyers, and they take one or two things each, 1.5 on average. That is 300 items, plus ten per cent spare. It is 14 baking volunteers if each brings two dozen.
This guide works through one concrete case: a sale at lunch or straight after school, at a school of around 400. Scale it to yours. A school of 600 is half as much again, so about 500 items and 21 volunteers. Fourteen volunteers at two dozen each is 336 items, which covers the 330 with a few to spare.
The whole table, for 400 students
| What | Items | Volunteers | One volunteer brings | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cookies | 96 | 4 | two batches of a dozen | $0.50 |
| Brownies | 48 | 2 | a 9×13 pan cut into 24 | $1.00 |
| Cupcakes | 48 | 2 | two dozen | $1.50 |
| Rice krispie treats | 48 | 2 | a 9×13 pan cut into 24 | $1.00 |
| Muffins or banana bread | 48 | 2 | two dozen muffins, or two loaves at 12 slices | $1.00 |
| Nut-free or gluten-free, labelled | 48 | 2 | two dozen, kept apart | $1.50 |
| Total | 336 | 14 |
The prices are the ones commonly seen at school bake sales, not the result of a survey. Pricing in steps of 50 cents keeps the change simple.
Supplies
| What | Need | What to buy | Working |
|---|---|---|---|
| Napkins | 330 | 2 × 200 pack | one per item |
| Plastic bags for wrapping | 288 | 6 × 50 pack | everything but the cupcakes, if bakers do not wrap at home |
| Change in the cash box | $50 | 30 × $1, 2 quarter rolls | $30 in ones, plus two $10 rolls (80 quarters) |
| Price signs and a marker | — | — | one per tray, with allergens on it |
Napkins and food storage bags are counted in pack sizes actually stocked in American supermarkets: napkins in packs of 40, 100 and 200, and bags in packs of 30, 40 and 50.
What the money looks like, as an illustration: if 300 of the 336 items sell and the average price is $1, the sale takes about $300. The mix above averages exactly $1 an item if everything goes, because the 50-cent cookies balance the $1.50 cupcakes and specialty items. Your own prices and sell-through will move that number.
Why two dozen a volunteer
Two dozen is what one kitchen produces in one go: a 9×13 pan cut into 24 squares, two trays of cookies, or two loaves of banana bread. Ask for more and fewer people say yes. Ask for less and you need twice as many volunteers, twice as many reminders and twice as many chances that somebody forgets.
It also makes the arithmetic easy. Divide the items you need by 24 and round up, and that is how many people to ask.
What actually goes wrong
- Everything is cookies. Without a sign-up by type, most people bake cookies, and a table of 200 cookies sells slower than a table with five different things on it. Assign the mix.
- It all sells in the first ten minutes. Then the last half of lunch finds an empty table. Put out half the stock at the start and bring out the rest in waves, so the table looks full until the end.
- Nobody knows what has nuts in it. Ask every baker to label their items, and keep the nut-free tray physically separate with its own tongs.
- There is no change. The first child pays with a $20 and the box has $3 in it. Start with the $50 above.
- Homemade food is not allowed. Some schools and districts have rules about homemade food or what can be sold during the school day. Check your district's policy before you ask anybody to bake.
If you are organizing this with other people
The arithmetic above is the easy half. The hard half is turning it into asks that one person can carry, keeping track of who said they would bring what, and reminding them before the day — which is what Event Wranglr does. You describe the sale in a sentence, it works out the quantities, and it produces a sign-up sheet where each volunteer claims "2 dozen cookies" or "one pan of brownies" from a link, with no account and no advertising.
Describe your bake sale and see what comes back.
Create an accountFree, ad-free, and volunteers never need an account.