With Tiger Bebop and Jazz Band’s trip to New Orleans growing closer by the day, members have begun finding ways to raise funds to lower individual costs.
Fundraising efforts began during Newtonville Village Day with a poster designed by seniors Ally Ryan and ZZ Sayeed, featuring a QR code linked to a PayPal account for receiving donations.
“The donation poster was Mr. Labedz’s idea,” said Ryan. “I believe he has done something similar in the past.”
“I think it came out of a need for a universal thing to promote the trip,” added Sayeed. “There are posters all around the school and we usually have one for each concert so why not for the trip?”
The proceeds of fundraising efforts are not set to be evenly distributed among all Jazz Band or Tiger Bebop members. Instead, the funds will be split depending on the amount of effort put in by students.
“This fundraising is really the students’ initiative,” said music teacher Richard Labedz. “They could brainstorm ideas and propose action plans and whatnot.”
Students from Tiger Bebop and Jazz Band met during WIN on Friday, Oct. 20 to discuss fundraising ideas. Ideas that came up included bake sales after school or during Harvestfest, ad books, busking (street performing) in Boston Common, and raffles.
“We’re planning on just playing more shows and trying to get people to donate through that,” said sophomore Jack Ryan, a member of Tiger Bebop.
According to Labedz, students in the past have been able to cover the entire cost of their trip through fundraising.
The school administration approves the trips, but to lower individual costs, students must either work to fundraise or apply for financial aid.
However, in previous years, “there was a team of parents that worked to form a group called the Newton Music Ambassadors,” said Labedz.
He added that eight to ten parents from North and South donated money to lower costs for past trips, to do a benefit concert off-site, and helped organize silent auctions.
“Between those efforts of the benefit concert, the silent auction, the ad book, and all that, we were in the ballpark of about $16,000 per year,” said Labedz.
This year, however, the two schools are not partnering for the New Orleans trip.
“We were in the process of trying to go towards a non-profit, but I think that had diverted a little bit since Covid. Since then, a lot of the parents that were helping out no longer are,” said Labedz. “We’re in the process of restarting that, but we don’t have a non-profit or parent organization that supports us at this point.”
Nonetheless, students participating in this trip are determined to make the trip work for any of their peers who want to go.
“We’re a pretty close community,” said Ryan. “We all want to help each other and make it easier for everyone involved.”
