Auburn sports and music boosters seek new members
Christopher SciriaAECSD Public Information Specialist
The Auburn Enlarged City School District is fortunate to have booster clubs that support its music and athletics programs.
The Auburn Music Boosters and the Auburn Sports Boosters are invaluable for the financial assistance they provide that goes toward items and services the district cannot fund through its own athletic and music budgets.
These funds come through hours of hard work which means volunteers are vital. Both booster clubs would like to see more people get involved.
“We can always use more. When I started with the music boosters, maybe we had two to three people at a meeting if we were lucky,” said Allison Fennessy, the music boosters’ president. “It's grown to at least between eight and 12 at every month’s meeting. That's a lot, that's a big increase. I'm really fortunate that I have a core group of volunteers that always come to my rescue. But we would always take more, if there's a parent that wants to volunteer, we're not going to turn them away.”
The sports boosters are actively seeking new volunteers to bolster their membership. They’re especially needed to help operate the Holland Stadium concession stand for football games and other varsity and JV games, as well as all varsity and JV basketball games at the high school. The concession stands are important because that’s where the sports boosters raise the majority of their funding.
“It's really about volunteers because we're only as good as the number of volunteers that we have,” said Mary Beth Leeson, the sports boosters president. “We need volunteers to work the concession stand and depending on the event, depends on how many people you need. I've consistently said to my board, "if everybody did a couple of shifts in the concession stand, it wouldn't be overwhelming.”
Leeson said the sports boosters have about 10 voting board members who serve three-year terms. According to the group’s bylaws, there can be a minimum of eight members and a maximum of 20. They are required to attend 70% of all monthly board meetings and work the concession stand at different times during the year (football games are mandatory unless a substitute can be found).
The boosters adopted a new member handbook in August and changed its membership classes. Two AHS Varsity Club members, one male, one female, can be non-voting ex-officio members to give students some input on equipment funding requests.
“It would be interesting to have perspective from current students,” Leeson said. “I think that's going to be a nice piece for our board to get the input from student-athletes.”
Another important change is there are non-voting members who can assist in fund-raising.
“You become a member of the sports boosters and then you can volunteer with us in different ways. You don't necessarily have to do concessions but we created that,” she said. “If we can get people, we take student volunteers, we take parents, grandparents, community members, anybody who's willing to do it. Everybody that I've talked to that's done it (working the concession stand), they say it's actually fun. You get to talk to people from the community and it's not hard work, it's a social thing. Most people enjoy the time.”
Both groups look for community support for programming and events. Fennessy said the music boosters are hosting famed trumpet player Al Chez on Jan. 27.
“We will always take donations and sponsorships from the community,” Fennessy said. “Chez played for ‘The Late Show With David Letterman.’ He's worked with Bon Jovi, he's a Yamaha teaching artist. He's going to do a clinic with our high school kids, with our junior high kids. We're hoping to do a community countywide clinic as well on Saturday (Jan. 27) and open it up to the other music programs in our county. I would love for the community to come to our concerts and see what these kids are doing, particularly this January concert.”
Leeson said overall the sports boosters are doing well and got through COVID in good financial condition.
“We have been pretty successful in getting support (from local businesses),” she said. “Actually we are in really good shape. We had been extremely conservative during the COVID year as far as giving money out. We're trying to be as supportive to as many sports programs as we possibly can, the district’s ability to fund equipment and supplies for teams has really been difficult in the last few years and we've tried to bridge that gap as much as possible.”
The sports boosters also use its volunteers to put together printed programs for the athletes.
“We have a seasonal program that is a heavy lift because we're getting team pictures and parents can do ads, businesses do ads and getting all of that data together,” Leeson said. “We need volunteers to do that. The kids have really enjoyed having that as a memento, so we like to continue to do it, but it is a heavy lift.”
Some of the funds pay for trophies for team banquets as well as equipment such as lacrosse helmets, golf bags, cheerleading pom-poms and safety mats, as well as camps for football, soccer, basketball, cheerleading, ice hockey and field hockey. The sports boosters also fund camps, clinics and strength training, as well as supporting nutritional needs for athletes.
“Right now we're struggling to keep up with the demand from team needs as far as equipment and that kind of thing,” Leeson said.
The sports boosters are also administrators for the Chloe Calhoun Scholarship and the Auburn Athletic Hall of Fame.
“We collect the fees for the dinner etc.,” Leeson said. “The hall of fame has really tried very hard to keep the dinner cost manageable so that if someone gets inducted, their family members can afford the dinner. They've recently started accepting sponsors so they can keep the cost manageable.”
Fennessy said the music boosters use their funds for replacing instruments, programming, workshops and advocacy. The band recently competed at a national event in Allentown, Pa.
“Anything that we raise is going right back into our programming and right back into our kids,” Fennessy said. “The point of a non-profit is you're not holding on to a balance, you're using those funds. This is a community that is rich in music. It's really impactful for our students to have these performance experiences. Our mission is to bring these experiences to these kids but also to show them that there is a world outside. We need to expose them to the larger world as well.”
In the end, both booster groups have a common goal: supporting the students of the Auburn Enlarged City School District in their pursuit of athletic and musical excellence.
“Our mission is the same, so we're supporting and there's a lot of overlap between our kids,” Fennessy said. “A lot of our music kids are athletes and a lot of the athletes are taking some kind of music, so we're really supporting the same group of people, just in different ways.”
For more information, email:
auburnsportsbooster@gmail.com
auburnnymusicboosters@gmail.com
