Cheer Expenses

Throughout the year there are a variety of expenses that are both planned and unplanned. In years past, parents were requested to pay as the needs arose. However, this system caused a lot of stress for both the parents and the coaches for several reasons. 

1. The last minute requests became frequent and as the year progressed would feel excessive and overwhelming. 
2. The ordering of uniforms, reserving of camps, and time-sensitive needs would become bottlenecked by missed and late payments causing missed deadlines, less opportunities, and disappointments within the team. 
3. It would highlight those that have and those that have not. 

A year ago, Coach Jess discovered a payment plan that is adopted by many other high-school teams. The upfront payments allowed for timely bookings, orderings, and happier parents. 

1. When everything is paid for in full upfront, fundraising becomes fun because you get money back. 
2. Orders are done on time. 
3. We get to go to the camps that fit our team the best. 
4. Our choreography is delivered in a timely manner, eliminating stressful practices leading up to competitions. 
5. And parents are happy that they aren’t constantly being asked for money at every turn. Once payments are in, you only pay for food for your child when we travel. 

Coaches are happier because they have a realistic and known budget to work within, so plans can be made well in advance and for the best interests of the team. AND whenever costs shift or unexpected items pop up we can adjust as necessary to responsibly use what we have, without bothering all the parents about it. Think, surprise pizza party because a game went late. Or special bows due to a huge accomplishment. Or needing just $10 more per girl to get the bling they all really, really want! 

The majority of our cheer expenses are for customized uniforms and experiences/training. These items are paid for in advance weeks to months before we get to enjoy them.  Here is the breakdown of timelines with these things:

Summer cheer camp: book in early May, deposit Mid-May, payment in full in mid June, go to camp in July

Choreography: book in March, deposit in early May, paid in full by choreography camp, typically in June.

Uniforms: custom orders through reps. with several companies. Zoom calls for orders in early April, artwork mockups in Mid-May, adjustments once prices come in, approval by teams in late May, Order in June. 6-18 weeks time from order to delivery.

Camp/Practice Wear: order online, through reps, and as early as possible. The glitter orders have to be made either in early May or heat pressed by the coaches to have them in time for camp. Usually ordered by mid June and received right before camp begins. 

This is to build up our club account. Our club account pays for a lot of our extras that we don’t ask the parents to pay for. As the club account grows the total we ask for each year can be less and less. These items are numerous, but here are a few we paid for in the years past: 

• Special outfits for camp
• Goodie bags for comps
• Team bonding events
• Parade floats (4th of July, Homecoming)
• Senior Sashes and gifts for senior night
• Awards for the banquet night
• Coach attire
• Team Jerseys
• Speciality accessories: bows, socks, small good luck charms and team gifts
• Fillers for school owned uniforms (new uniforms for next year)

We will create a fundraiser to cover it. We strive to be good stewards of the money paid toward cheer. We do not want to ask for extra money once the payments have been made. If we can’t fundraise for the item we want, then we simply don’t get it. 

Please have a frank conversation with  Coach Jess. We have a variety of options available to families struggling with the upfront payments. Please keep in mind that everyone agrees to the cheer fees when they sign the Team Commitment and Parent Permission at tryouts. You will be expected to pay, so please do your best to support fundraising efforts and let us know if we should help you with possible scholarships. While not always guaranteed there have been generous donors in the past. 

I believe that the labor put into the fundraiser as a team is worth something, as is the value of what we are selling. Take the pie fundraiser for example. The pies are made by us for our customers. This means we need to cover our expenses before our profit. The profit then should be split between those that labor to bake the pies and those that did the work to sell them. We are not only fundraising for individual team members but also for our club account as well. Therefore we set aside 10-20% of every fundraiser for the club account and then split the remaining 80-90% of profits between the labor and the sales. This makes for a very fair payout for all involved. AND helps the team learn a little about running a business as well! 

Yes. We are working on building a club account that, all things going to plan, will cover most, if not all of future cheer expenses. I would love to build a team culture that fundraises to pay for the following team’s expenses each year with fundraising. When everyone participates this becomes a closer and closer reality. I know of several other high school teams that have been successful with this model. Imagine not needing to pay more than $500 for cheer!! A dream!

These items do not need to be ordered through a rep, customized, or even have to be an exact match with the rest of the team. These items will be required each year so they can be carried over, as long as the cheerleader is a member of the team. It will be up to the families to purchase replacements as needed.

Much like other sports at WRHS – families are expected to purchase a certain amount of personal items to participate, such as shoes, mouth guards, practice clothing, etc… 

This year, when asked how many on the team already owned a pair of Lulu leggings EVERYONE raised their hands. Last year, we used the team discount at LuluLemon to order our warmups and a pair of shorts. When you order 12 or more of the same item as a team, you get a 25% discount. This made the leggings cheaper than Nike, Under Armour with the school discount, and Varsity!!! Originally we were not going to use our lulu’s again this year, but when everyone on the team said they already had a pair, we decided to put them into our rotation as part of the uniform.  I did say that it was up to them if they wanted to purchase a new pair for this year.

This is for safety and competition/regulation reasons. Our uniforms need to be well fitted to ensure the best safety while stunting. Uniforms that are ill fitting can incur deductions at comp for showing midriffs, being too loose, or not covering the bum well enough. We only order uniforms that are well made and fit regulation standards. This can increase the cost, but it is our intention to reuse our uniforms for a total of 4 years. I want you to get every penny out of their uniform costs that you can!