• Robertsdale High School Marching Band looking to raise funds for new instruments

ROBERTSDALE, Alabama — The Robertsdale Golden Bear Marching Band is playing on and band director Dayna Brannan hopes a new fundraising campaign will allow them to do so with new instruments.

“We have some instruments that are 50 years old,” said Brannan. “We’ve spent thousands of dollars just refurbishing old instruments, but there’s only so much patching you can do.”

Currently there are just over 100 students in the high school program, Brannan said. Next year, it is projected to grow to about 125 to 130 students and could be as high as 140 if the band is able to hold onto all of the Central Baldwin Middle School's. CBMS could have as many as 170 members, Brannan said.

“It’s impossible for us to grow the band if we don’t have the instruments to give them,” she said. “We are losing a lot of students every year between middle and high school simply because we don’t have enough instruments to provide for them.”

While smaller instruments such as trumpets, flutes and clarinets are generally purchased by the students and their families, many of the larger instruments such as sousaphones (marching tubas), euphoniums, bass clarinets, baritone saxophones and percussion instruments (drums, snares, tenors and bass drums) are purchased and kept by the schools.

“To purchase a new sousaphone costs about $6,000, and the students who play those instruments need two, one for marching and one for concert band,” Brannan said. “You can’t expect a student or a parent to shell out that kind of money.”

Also Brannan said, many students are called upon to play more than one instrument.

“If I have 20 flute players and need a tenor saxophone player, I will sometimes call on students to switch,” she said. “We have a lot of that here. We have a lot of talent who are more than willing to step up and learn a new instrument if needed. We can’t expect them to have to go out and purchase a new instrument after they’ve already purchased another instrument. We need to be able to provide that for them.”

In all, Brannan said, over the next three years, the band is hoping to replace or add five new sousaphones, three piccolos (one wooden and two plastic), five bass clarinets, a baritone saxophone, a marching percussion line – including snares, tenors, bass drum, carriers, cases and stands; a contra-bass clarinet, two oboes and four euphoniums.

In order to fill the entire order, Brannan said, it will cost just over $85,000. New sousaphones and percussion line needs account for more than half, about $30,000 each, she said.

She received a grant this year for $5,000 and was able to purchase one baritone saxophone and said she hopes to continue to get $5,000 a year in grants to help pay for equipment. The band has also started a barbecue fundraiser which was held last year at the Loxley Municipal Park.

“We didn’t raise a lot of money with that fundraiser, but the hope is that the more people hear about it and want to support it, the more money we will be able to raise in the future,” she said.

For the rest, she said, they are hoping to get the community to help, asking for donations from each of the municipalities, Robertsdale, Loxley and Silverhill (the Robertsdale City Council voted to table a request for funding at its meeting on Monday, April 18).

“We’ve got some fantastic kids in our program who are willing to step up and do whatever it takes to make this band the best it can be,” Brannan said.

In the past year, the band has entered two regional competitions, winning both, Brannan said. They also received straight A’s in state competition, something that had not been done since the band began taking records in the 1980s.

“We have so much potential here, but these kids have just kind of learned to make do with what they have,” Brannan said. “I want to do better than that. I want these kids to have the equipment they need to reach their potential and I think we can achieve that. We just have to believe.”