What Are They Thinking?

I'll remove the town name to protect the well-intentioned client. Read this request for services and see if it all sounds a bit too risky for any reasonable person. I can't see a comedian taking this gig nor an audience enjoying this one. I CAN see where future Klansmen might come from and where a lot of lawsuits can be filed. So at least they've got that going for them. PLUS, they plan on raising a lot of money, but somehow I doubt they have any money to spend on entertainment.

Gig Type: Fund Raiser
Entertainment Needed: Comedian
City: SOMEWHERE IN THE WORLD
Venue: An Elementary School
Date: April 2007

Duration: 0.5 hours

Description: This may be somewhat of a different type of request. I am
the head of the ####### Elementary School PTO (Parent Teacher
Organization). We are in the process of planning this years International Dinner
(an event where we serve a buffet dinner with foods from different
countries and children perform ethnic entertainment).

Anyhow, we are
looking for someone to write some simple clean ethnic jokes that a 4th or 5th
grader could read or, a comdian that will internact on stage in a
comedy routine with a child (age 7 - 11)doing ethnic related jokes. Again,
it would be important to make it funny but not insulting.

We held our first dinner last year and over sold our tickets 300+ people attended.
This year, we are moving the show to the Middle School so that we can
have more guests attend. We also had an International Market at the event
that raised over $2,000. This year, we would like to raise about
$3,000. All of the proceeds would go directly back to the school to better
the education of our children. We have a number of low income families
so, we are always looking at ways to help buy materials and bring in
programs to the school through PTO funds so that we do not have to ask
parents to give money or pay for things when they don't always have the
funds to do so. If you could get back to me to let me know if you would be
able to help us out.

Search status: just started looking
Decision planned: within the next couple months

This has got to be one of those classic "Road to Hell/Good Intentions" kind of things, right? Are these low income families so needful of attention and funding that they're willing to sit through a bunch of grade school kids telling ethnic jokes on stage? Sure, they're saying that they don't want to have any insulting humor, but really...as much as I want a world where political correctness goes away and we can all start telling Polish jokes again, is this REALLY the best way to raise cash and set an example for our kids?

Is this even possible, to have youngsters telling jokes based upon ethnic heritage and not offend someone? I'm sure it must be possible, right? I'm a hell of a good writer and very funny, but I can't imagine ANYONE being able to write a bunch of friendly, non-threatening, and insult-free ethnic jokes suitable for elementary school kids. Maybe I'm just too cynical, but this one seems like a powder keg to me.

I didn't even submit a bid.