Sign Up Guide: How to Use SignUpGenius for Book Fairs

Book fairs are a great way to foster a lifelong passion for reading in students while raising money for the school library and reading programs. You can use SignUpGenius to manage your book fair, including all volunteer recruitment and shift schedules.

Getting Started: Create the Volunteer Schedule

Tips for creating your sign up slots:

• Plan enough volunteers for each day of the book fair. One floor helper for every ten children is usually a good starting point.
• Ensure you have enough volunteers for setup and tear down.
• Remember that you'll need cashiers for collecting payment.

Helpful features to try:

• Create a time slot sign up
• Hide volunteer names
• Collect donations for fundraising
• Allow people to swap slots by selecting that option in the settings step
• Choose a design to match the theme of the book fair

Communicating the Book Fair Details

Communicate the details of the event ahead of time to help busy parents. Some tips:

• Eliminate no-shows by sending automatic reminder emails, or create custom reminders and confirmation messages.
• Include the details on the website and newsletter, or even add a web button linking on the PTA website to reach more parents.
• Send text messages to quickly communicate time sensitive information to participants.

Running the Book Fair

Be sure to stay available during the book fair to help all of the volunteers with questions or needs that may arise.

• Ask volunteers to show up early (ten minutes should be good) to outline responsibilities.
• Manage the traffic flow to keep all the little customers moving.
• Allow for time at the end to tidy up.
• On the last day, review the sign up to ensure you have enough tear down volunteers.
• Send thank you emails to all of your volunteers.

Looking to plan another school-related event? We make it easy to organize school volunteers. Get started today!