Dressed for the part: CCHS choir begins fundraisers

Department to replace choir robes from 1988

By Kate Hayden

khayden@charlescitypress.com

Replacing old choir robes can be a process for most high school music departments: a long, drawn out planning process, said Brad Beale, vocal director at the Charles City High School.

“I got a couple of samples from the sales representative today, so we’re narrowing in on the exact one. The thing that’s difficult, the samples she’s given me are a good place to start. I want to make sure we’re getting exactly what we want,” Beale said.

It may be early in the replacement process, but the department is moving towards fundraising goals, scheduling their first 50/50 raffle for the Feb. 22 choir concert. Proceeds from the raffle will go towards replacing about 100 blue choir robes CCHS vocal students have worn since 1988. Beale first announced plans to update the choir’s look during the November vocal concert, and since then has been working with sales representatives through the selection process. Beale hopes to have robes purchased by the start of the 2016-17 school year.

The raffle will be the first step towards larger fundraisers for the department, said Beale.

“I’m starting to get some concrete numbers from the robe people…we have a better idea for what our realistic goal should be. We want to get to the point where we don’t leave the choir fund totally bankrupt,” Beale said.

The department is brainstorming larger events with the potential to become an annual fundraiser, similarly to the high school athletic department, which hosts a golf tournament yearly for community members and supporters to take part in.

“We’re doing a spray and see what’s successful right now. We had our first parents’ meeting last month, and a big portion was talking through some ideas of fundraising and seeing what we might be able to do with that,” Beale said.

Meanwhile, a color scheme has been mostly settled –– black robes with silver stoles and orange trim –– and Beale is working to narrow down the quality, materials and even the maintenance process of new robes, including quality garment bags to protect the robes in transit from storage to performances.

“We need to be getting things that are going to protect our investment. Part of our difficulty right now is that we do not store the robes and rehearse in the same place that we perform,” Beale said. “There’s been a couple of different things I’ve tried with that, I’d like to get some kind of robe rack that they can hang on, and those cost.”