She puts her phone down after making a new post on her social media about a raffle, asking people to buy tickets. While it isn’t difficult, junior Amari Wright said that it felt awkward at times.
“I wouldn’t say that it’s hard, but it is definitely like, ‘I don’t want to go up and ask people for money,'” Wright said. “You just have to really promote it. I post about it all the time, I feel like it’s always on my stories. I tell all my friends about it, I send it to my family and my friends. Even people I don’t talk to anymore, I still send it to them.”
For any organization, raising funds is important if you have big plans. This statement is doubly true for the Charmers, who are fundraising to help pay for their trip to Florida in February. One of the fundraisers the group is currently doing is a raffle for an 85″ television, with a free installation. Charmers coach Sidnee Denman said that the television was donated by a sponsor.
“He reached out this summer, and I was kind of taken aback, it was such a generous offer,” Denman said. “We’re super grateful for it, that’s why we’ve been working so hard to make sure that everyone is participating and selling those tickets to help offset all of those costs.”
Denman said that the donated television would have an amazing profit margin. One charmer, junior Aiyanna Williams, said she was excited for the activities the group has planned for the event.
“I’m so excited, it’s going to be fun,” Williams said. “We get to do a workshop to learn how to do dance other than drill team dance, and then we get to go have fun with Disney.”
While the group looks forward to their trip to Florida, they also have to look at the present: raising funds. Wright said that she got over the awkwardness of promoting fundraisers by focusing on the Charmers, rather than herself.
“The way I made it better to myself, it’s like I’m not asking for money, I’m just promoting this thing that they’re asking for money,” Wright said. “If you want to do it, that’s fine, I’m not the one [asking].”
The Charmers’ raffle is currently ongoing until November 1, and tickets are 1 for $5, and 5 for $20. They can be purchased with cash or through a Zelle payment to [email protected]. Wright said that she thought the tickets were well worth their price.
“It’s a raffle ticket, but it’s for an 85-inch TV, which is honestly insane,” Wright said. “It’s a really good deal, it’s $20 for five, and not that many people have really participated, so there’s a really high chance of someone getting it.”
Another group is also currently raising funds for a field trip is the law 1 class, who are going on November 15 to a bomb defusal site. Law 1 teacher Robert Kocher said the class started fundraising due to issues with the school’s budget.
“The CTE program does not have any money this year, so they cancelled all field trips,” Kocher said. “The only way for us to go on a field trip is if we raise the money ourselves. Everyone told me that we weren’t going to be able to go on this field trip, even if I raised the money myself, because you can’t do it unless you have a club, because ‘where do you put the money?’ I had to go down to the front office and figure out an alternate path.”
To raise money, Kocher bought over $400 of snacks for his students to sell in the hallways. One law 1 student, senior Kaitlyn Alvarez Rosiles, said she was surprised with how fast they sold.
“Our law teacher bought us some candy and some chips, and he gave us a bag with those chips and the candy, and told us the prices,” Alvarez Rosiles said. “We were supposed to go around the school and sell them. Surprisingly, it sold really fast.”
The snack fundraiser sold well, and the class nearly doubled the money spent on snacks. Junior Katelynn Guereca said she enjoyed getting to meet new students from selling to them.
“We sold snacks for a bit, and we got a lot of good money from that,” Guereca said. “We got to talk to a bunch of new students buying snacks, so we got to interact with new people.”
The class also did a fundraiser at Chik-Fil-A, but Kocher said there wasn’t a lot of turnout, and the group only raised $53, which he said he found a bit disappointing.
“I was just like, ‘son-of-a-gun,'” Kocher said, “But, I’m still learning how to do all this kind of stuff. [It’s just] growing pains, and I think we’ll have enough money for the field trip.”
Even with the struggles of fundraising, both Kocher and the law 1 class are excited for the field trip. Alvarez Rosiles said she was excited to experience the bomb site.
“I’m excited because I’ve never felt the impact of a bomb before,” Alvarez Rosiles said. “Our law enforcement teacher said that you can actually feel it in your chest, [and] I just want to experience it.”
