This is a touchy subject for me. While I have no involvement in my immediate community now; I used to.
For three years, I served as a high school band booster president. If I had to go back, I wouldn’t change a thing. However, that does not mean it didn’t leave a bad taste in my mouth.
Below are a few things I did to help the high school band community. I baked. A lot. Brownies for the jazz band fundraisers. Cookies for the students when they helped the band boosters out. Cakes for auction at the annual percussion fundraisers. Then, there were the parent’s night marching event where we prepared hundreds of hot dogs for the band kids and their families. One year, we had an ice cream social. Every summer, I cut dozens of watermelons into cubes for Watermelon Wednesdays during band camp. One year, another parent helped the boosters grill burgers. We hosted All-Region Band auditions where I prepared the judge’s hospitality room. I literally made everything from pinwheels, to Swedish meatballs, to queso. I attended every band event. Every marching contest, every percussion competition, every concert. I lead every month’s booster meeting, I oversaw the annual mulch fundraiser, I even ran colorguard contests with hundreds of participants. I also oversaw the planning for the yearly band banquets. Every Friday, I recorded the marching show for the band directors. I sent weekly e-mails with the upcoming band events. I sewed/repaired band uniforms. I helped on picture day. I am sure there is more that I did, but if it was a chance to help, I did.
I did my best to welcome new band families every year and support the band directors to the best of my ability. I’d like to think I was appreciated, but in the end, I didn’t quite feel that way. It isn’t that the band directors made me feel unappreciated. It was the band parents and community. Just like any extracurricular, you have cliques that want to bad mouth and criticize yet fail to step up. Or even worse. Bail on you, and then come back expecting a pat on the back. It was drama and I hate drama. I just wanted to help the kids and their directors, but in the end, it didn’t feel like that is what I was doing.
So, this is a very long way of saying I will probably not invest my time into the community moving forward. It takes a special kind of person, and I realize that the juice is not worth the squeeze. Despite the way I felt at the end, I cherish the time it allowed me to spend with my son and make his band experience the best it could be.
Filthy Casual for Life 
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