After nearly a year of creative fundraising — from butter braids to Daddy-Daughter Dancing — students in the Perry High School band and choir are just about $2,000 away from reaching their goal of $140,000 to finance their trip to New York City over spring break.
PHS Vocal Music Department Director Jenn Nelson updated the Perry School Board Monday night on the status of the financing for the NYC trip, and everything appears to be coming together for the week of March 13.
This trip will be a , and we are working hard to ensure that every student who wants to travel is able to do so, regardless of their family’s financial situation.
A total of 83 students and 14 adult chaperones will take the week-long tour, which will see the band and choir performing in public, participating in Broadway workshops and sightseeing in America’s most populous city. Nelson and PHS Instrumental Music Director Blaine Schmidt will bring the number of adult travelers to 16.
The total cost of the trip, which has been arranged by Bob Rogers Travel of Napierville, Illinois, a company specializing in student performance group travel, is $141,072, Nelson told the school board. The student musicians have so far raised $138,422.28 toward that cost, leaving an outstanding bill of $2,649.72.
As part of what Nelson called a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for our students,” the PHS band will perform at the Madison Avenue Atrium and Sculpture Garden in a midday concert, and the PHS choir will sing at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.
The Perry group’s planned attendance at a performance by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra had to be scrapped, Nelson said, so the students will instead see a second Broadway musical, with “Wicked” and “The Lion King” promising much joy.
The PCSD School Board gave the students high marks for their successful fundraising, and President Linda Andorf gave special praise to Nelson for her diligence in organizing the trip.
“This was an exceptionally ambitious project,” Andorf said, “and I truly was not sure if you would be able to get to the point where you are now. I would like to say that I’m not sure that this trip would have gotten to where it is without all of your work because you have done an outstanding job at making the fundraising happen.”
In gratitude, Nelson led six student vocalists in delivering to the board a Singing Valentine — yet another successful student fundraising effort this week — knocking out the first few stanzas of “I Want It That Way,” the 1999 pop hit by the Backstreet Boys.
Donations toward the NYC trip can still be made by directing a check or cash to Perry High School, Music Department, at 1200 18th St. Perry, IA 50220. Donors may also stop by the high school office and pay with cash, check or credit/debit card.
