Tombola Balls

A tombola is a must have at the summer fair But is also a good fit with many other fundraising events. A tombola is a must have for any school, church or youth group fundraising event and is often a major fundraiser at fetes and fundraising fairs. Metal Bingo Game Set Cage Tombola With Chips Balls Cards. Condition is 'Used'. Shipped with USPS Priority Mail.This set is in excellent condition, only used a few times. Ball N45 was replaced with a spare, so it is handwritten, but all the balls are there.

What is tombola

The traditional form of Tombola came from Italy in the eighteenth century, but has since evolved into various forms. In essence it is a type of raffle where prizes are pre-assigned to certain numbers, and players draw a number (in the form of a numbered ball or ticket) to determine if they have won a prize.

In the context of fundraising, tombola has evolved to prizes being contained in numbered bottles or jars, and players draw a number and win the corresponding jar.

Tombola Balls Meaning

Forms of tombola

A wine tombola will have various bottles of wine (which can be wrapped in brown paper so people don’t know what they are, or left bare to everyone can see the labels), with a few high-end expensive wines as the draw-card. Players might pay $10 for a ticket, in the hope they win a $50 bottle of wine.

A bottle tombola will have a variety of bottled goods – from shampoo to passata to pickles to jams – usually all pantry items, and the price for a ticket might be $2-$5.

Most commonly, tombola prizes are jars filled with assorted items. Part of the fun of tombola is the huge range of items that the jars can contain, and I have provided a list below of more than 75 things you can put in a tombola jar, including some very special prizes for school kids that will cause a lot of excitement.

How to run a tombola

Tombola can almost be 100% profit if you get families within your school or community to provide the pre-filled jars. As long as they are filled with non-perishable items, you can start preparing the jars months in advance of your fundraising event, leaving minimal work for the day.

Jars can be second-hand as long as they are clean and have no label. They can be a range of sizes and shapes, and while you can leave them bare, they look extra nice when all the lids are covered with a matching cloth cover.

A great way of getting tombola donations is to ask students to bring a filled tombola jar in lieu of a gold coin donation for a free-dress/mufti day. People often have items around the house they can fill their jars with – there is no requirement for them to buy items specifically.

Once all the jars have been received, each must be numbered. You can simply stick a raffle ticket on each, or make special stickers with you school or fete logo which you hand number. Either way, you need to have the corresponding raffle ticket (or numbered ball) in a barrel or bucket for players to draw from.

You can decide if every ticket drawn wins a prize or if some of the numbers have a consolation prize (a lollypop) or no prize at all. Some recommendations suggest that 1 in 4 tickets win a prize, but I personally believe that all players should win a prize.

The cost to play (ie draw a number from the barrel) is a set price (ie $2 or $5) but it is fine for the value of the prizes to vary wildly – as it is the ‘valuable’ jars that act as a draw card. Make sure you promote the more unusual and valuable tombola prizes in advance to build excitement.

On the day of your event, all you need are tables to display your jars and a barrel or bucket full of tickets/numbers for players to draw from.

Hint: make sure you put your jars out in numerical order (not random). If the stall gets busy, you don’t want to be looking through 250 jars to find the correct one.

Tombola Basket

Suggestions for tombola jars

New/Pre-loved toys
Lego
Marbles
Costume jewellery
Barbie doll clothes
Temporary tattoos
Shopkins etc
Matchbox cars
Toy soldiers/dinosaurs/farm animals
Jokes
Skipping rope
Ping pong balls or tiny bouncy balls
Assorted goodies you get in party bags

DIY (include recipe/instructions in a small snap-lock bag folded at the top of the jar)
Non-perishable Ingredients for slime
Ingredients for cookies and brownie
Ingredients for playdough
Items to make pet rocks (smooth pebbles, paint, googly eyes etc)

Compilations
Gardening gloves, seed packets etc
Pencils, erasers, sharpener, tiny notebook, paper clips etc
Sewing kit: threads, tiny scissors, pins, needles, tape measure, thimble etc
Pamper kit: emery board, nail polish, face mask, bath bomb
Emergency kit: mini torch, mini screwdrivers, safety pins, tape etc
First aid kit – bandaids, eye wash, anti-bacterial cream etc

Make fresh just prior to event
Home-made sugar scrubs
Lollies or lolly pops (very popular and easy to make)
Chocolates
Home-made chutneys and jams

Fete related prizes
Vouchers for free rides
Meal/ice cream vouchers
Extra raffle tickets for the raffle
‘Fete dollars’ to spend at any stall at the fete

Extra special school prizes (if a non-school person win these, you can always let them pick again)
Win your entire class a pizza party
Win your entire class a free icecream from the canteen
Win your entire class a movie afternoon
Win your school a free-dress day (you get to pick the theme)
Win your teachers a dress-up day (you get to pick the theme)
Win your class an extra-long recess

Household
Elastic bands, tiny bulldog clips or paperclips
Origami paper
Hair elastics, scrunchies or hair clips (new)
Push-pins/thumb tacks
Party poppers
Bubble mix
New socks
Balloons
Water balloons
Tiny novelty erasers
5 cent pieces or $2 coins
Scratch’n’win tickets
A rolled $20 or $50 note
Tea-light candles
Fridge magnets
Glow sticks
Chalk
Beach sand with beautiful shell hidden inside

Beauty
Bath salts
Bath gel balls
Exfoliating gloves
Face masks
Lip gloss or balm
Nail polish
Potpourri

Craft
Buttons
Tubes of glitter
Glitter glue
Beads
New pencils or crayons
Pom poms
Tiny bows
Googly eyes
Pipe cleaners
Washi tape
Brad pins
Stamps
Sequins
Stickers

What is your favourite tombola idea?

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Tombolo Bellevue