Affiliate Marketing Secrets

A group of parents from my son’s school is trying to initiate a campaign to raise fund for people in need in Japan after the devastating Earthquake and the Tsunami on March 11. We decided to collect money and send it to a small fishing town that we have a personal connection with. We are not affiliated with the school, in fact, the school PTA could not help us collect the money since the money collected by PTA has to be used for the school. We don’t have any entity or non-profit status. We are just moms. We are not planning to donate the money to an organization at this time.
Can anyone help us the best way to collect money from individual and local businesses? Would they write a check to an individual?