Fundraising: Christmas Tree Pick-up
Thank you to Natalia Mielczarek, writer at the Tennessean.com for this article.
In about four hours yesterday morning, the Hillwood High School band raised four times the amount of money it had received from school administrators to run the program this year.
Armed with layers of sweat shirts, work gloves and maps, several Hillwood students and their band-booster parents canvassed west Nashville looking for two things: Christmas trees tossed to the curb and envelopes.
Moms, dads and aspiring musicians picked up about 70 trees from those who signed up for the service. A pickup fee was $10, but most customers gave more. The $1,000 the band collected will pay for sheet music and transportation costs to various festivals.
“Money for band is hard to come by so anything we can do, we do,” said Ben Zolkower, a junior at Hillwood High who plays percussion. His parents coordinated the effort.
“Band is mostly what I do. It’s one of my future goals to be a band director and maybe major in music education. You start with two weeks of band camp in the summer, and it never ends.”
The Hillwood High School band is one of Metro’s smaller ensembles, gathering about 55 students. Because of budget cuts in Metro in recent years, money to support bands and orchestras has been dwindling from year to year, Metro officials and band directors said.
The $250 that Hillwood High got this school year to sustain the program is nowhere near what’s required to operate a competitive band, its director Joel Jones said. The group’s annual budget lingers around $30,000, almost all of which is raised by band boosters.
Metro provides a fair number of musical instruments to its young performers, but some date to the 1960s, and are in desperate need of repair. At Hillwood High, $75,000 is needed to replace the old instruments, Jones said.
“If I didn’t have these parents and students helping raise the money for the band, we wouldn’t go to competitions and festivals,” said Jones, who picked up trees himself yesterday morning.
“Without them, there is no band.”
The idea to pick up Christmas trees for a fee and later drop them off at the Edwin Warner Park off Highway 100 to be recycled came from one of the band-booster moms involved with a local Boy Scout troop that sells trees every year.
When Jean Hastings, who lives about a mile from Hillwood High, heard about the pickup, she immediately signed up.
“I have a great appreciation for fundraising, especially when youth is involved,” said Hastings, who added that she donated $15 for the cause. “I love what they’re modeling there at the school, and I’m passionate about environment and recycling.”
Hillwood band boosters have relied on more traditional fundraising techniques in the past: door-to-door fruit and cookie sales, car washes and opening acts at local auto auctions.
“If someone says: ‘We have an idea that will give us $1,000,’ we jump at it because we’re that desperate,” said Ben Zolkower’s father, Richard Zolkower, an avid fan of his son’s high school band.
“People are used to parents crying that there’s no money for band. Everybody in the world knows that you go door to door to sell stuff. But the $5 and $10 donations just don’t cut it anymore. We need to reach businesses.”
Very nice informative article. I agree with a lot of the article, as well as that we have got to get businesses involved with fundraising to ensure the success. However, the one thing i would differ on is the $5 & $10 donations do make a difference. I have been in the fundraising field for many years raising funds for many charities including MADD, Special Olympics for practically all 50 states and local chapters, MSAA, VFW, and other national, state, and local charities. We also just recently began our own local charity focused on helping out children in poverty stricken families with everyday essentials such as clothing, school supplies, etc… and just remember that some can only give that $5 and it would be a slap in their face to say that it “just doesn’t cut it” anymore. The communities must get involved and feel a part of the charity, which will drastically increase the chance of the business contributions. Also, there are a couple of suggestions that may help with the “consumer” donations such as adopting a “monthly givers” program. Most people that can afford the $5 can afford it each month and will gladly do it, which equals a $60 donation vs the $5. I know that the selling of items is a major market for programs such as band, but also consider just a plain “good feeling” donation program like mentioned above and give that option of monthly giving or even further bi-monthly. And you will also get the response back from them that they can give every other month, which is still 500% increase over the $5/$10 donation. I know it is easier said than done, but just wanted to give a few suggestions because I hate to see great programs struggle. Please check out our NEW blog at TRUTHINFUNDRAISING BLOG AND our web-site that just went live today at TRUTHINFUNDRAISING.COM- , which is far from complete, but it is going. We just got it up about 11PM tonight so we have a lot of work. If you will post on the blog and email me at websignup44@gmail.com we are going to have a page to help organizations and charities such as this through promotion. THis is a free feature and we will have advanced features including helping the organization of events, advertising on a broader level, direct mailing, etc… that would reach some donors that are not being reached… But email us and in subject place FUNDRAISING LINK 2 ADD. YOU do NOT have to have a web-site to promote it and we are looking at allowing you a FREE page on our server if we have the space, but we can definately place it on our ad page. Please include some information and contact information so we can get any questions answered if needed prior to posting, but no worries you privacy will be kept 100% confidential..
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