By Doug Berg
Over a year ago, Mr. Eugene Vomhof, father of several (four at last count and more coming) Vomhof children who have gone through the Mini-School Program, and known professionally and affectionately as the Rainmaker (he’s in the soft water business), donated over a thousand Ionettes to the Mini-School Program. Now the Ionette is a piece of merchandise which, through a filtration system, removes the minerals from tap water and enables the user to use this water in car batteries, steam irons, on plants, and for any other purpose where distilled water is necessary.
Mr. Vomhof had these extra Ionettes on hand and donated them to Mini-School with the idea that Mini-School students could sell them for $1.00 a piece (they retailed for over $2.00) and thereby raise some money for the program.
They are hard to sell. We’ve never had a big push on them, but Darnelle Dallmann, who sold over 125 fundraiser tickets at Christmas, has been trying to sell Ionettes for over a month and has only sold about 20. Some other kids have sold a few, but all of them also say they’d rather sell raffle tickets any day. It just goes to show that if people are going to donate a dollar, they’d much rather take a chance on a silly drawing than spend a buck on a useful piece of merchandise.
Anyway, we still own a thousand Ionettes and it sure would be nice to get rid of them not only for the money but also to make more room in the storeroom. Any suggestions? Since, at least temporarily, we cannot have drawings as a fundraiser, it sure would be nice to get rid of the Ionettes. Any catchy slogans? We ought to be able to come up with something more catchy than “Bucks for the Bandshell.” Any Mini-School alumni interested in an Ionette? How about parents? Get ‘em while they last!