After years of being a parent, I have become quite tired of mindless fundraising.  It irritates me when my daughter is asked to participate in selling something that I know I do not need…….so why do we ask others to buy it.  In that lens, these are guidelines I use for fundraising with the Stillwater Bands.

1.  Does it benefit our community-  In our fundraising, I want to maximize the benefit to the Stillwater community.  I always ask, does this fundraising event benefit our citizens, local businesses and most certainly bring maximum gain for the efforts of our student musicians.

2.  Is it respectful of the student musicians time- Our student musicians have joined the Stillwater Bands to make music.  Anything that takes time away from this must either be directly connected to the ensembles success (i.e. selling tickets to a concert) or should have the strongest monetary gain for a desired purpose with the least amount of time committed.

3.  Where does the money go? – The money raised must be able to be directly applied to the program or to the individual students fundraising for travel.  I do not like fundraisers where the money goes to an organization outside our community unless it provides a unique service that our community businesses cannot provide.

With this in mind, I will be be promoting three main fundraising events this year.  They are as follows;

Music Department Rummage Sale – October 9-10, 2015

Poinsettia Flower Sale – Cooperative sale with Rose Floral in Stillwater, begins October 20.

Haunted Forest Walk – October 30, 2015 at the SAHS ELC

All parents indicating on the syllabus form that they do not wish to be contacted by our parent volunteers for fundraising events will only receive information through the band directors weekly updates.

To those of you who have indicated on the syllabus form that you do not wish to be contacted concerning fundraising by our parent organizers, this will be the last notification you receive concerning this event.