Every year or so a special time comes around. Laughter, activities, large amounts of food consumption, and of course… family. Yes, we’re talking about family reunion time!

Planning a family reunion can be quite the task, especially if you’ve got people around the country to round up. If your family is anything like mine, getting them to pitch in enough money to cover all the expenses of renting a suitable location to pile into and procuring enough food to cover all those appetites is like pulling teeth. So I’ve come up with a few different ideas of how to make collecting money for your family reunion easy and even – dare I say? – fun!

1. Save spare change, especially pennies, throughout the year leading up to the family reunion. You can even make this into a game of some sort to see which branch of the family can come up with the most change. Create a WePay account dedicated to the family reunion to help with keeping track of the change. Announce the grand total at your reunion and give a small prize – perhaps a album full of family photos? – to the winners.

2. Gather family heirlooms such as quilts, photographs or china and auction them to family members. Hold a silent auction before the reunion or a traditional auction during the reunion.

3. Hold a raffle of donated items from companies or family members during the reunion. Plane tickets or electronics are good money generating items.  If you’re lucky enough to have a family member who deals with events, tickets to the events would work.

4. Charge a traditional registration fee to families. Some families charge per family unit and others charge different prices based on age and family size.

5. Hold a bake sale. Cliche yes, but if you’ve got family members who are really good with this type of thing, it can be a great way to show off their talents, bring the family closer together and raise money.

You can always come up with creative ideas to collect money for your family reunion, and if everyone pitches in it won’t be difficult to come up with the amount you need. The beauty of the WePay.com is having a unified place to secure funds for all of the ideas. It’s become a community for many movements to generate donations. This is just one more way to take advantage of the tools WePay offers.

What are some ways you’ve used in the past to come up with the funds for your family reunion?