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The Cane Creek Middle School band recently traveled to New York City and performed at the famed Carnegie Hall. The band was invited to perform in the New York Invitational Music Festival held in early March. Little did we know when we accepted the invitation that our region would be devastated by Hurricane Helene in the Fall of 2024.
Students were out of school for four weeks following the storm leaving the future of their performance in question.
After the storm hit my wife and I evacuated to Charlotte with our one-year old to stay with family. While schools were closed I remember sitting at their kitchen table wondering when our home would have power restored, when schools might reopen, and which of my students were safe or had relocated like we had been forced to.
I began reaching out to parents to see what their thoughts were on continuing to plan for our performance in New York. The response was overwhelmingly in favor of continuing our plans.
Families believed that the trip would be an optimistic goal for our students and a way to get back to a sense of normalcy after the loss many of our community members faced.
Once we decided to continue with our performance there were two challenges that immediately came to mind. First, how are we going to make up for the month of missed rehearsal time (even before the wintry weather moves in) and secondly how are we going to ask families to pay for this knowing the financial struggle many of them are now having to bear. The latter was certainly the more daunting of the two challenges we faced.
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Our school is small compared to many across the state — 487 students in 6th-8th. Because of this most of our students are involved in several activities within the school whether it be band, athletics, clubs, etc.
This has led to our PTA being highly involved in our school and extremely invested in the success of our student body. The PTA helped us to organize a donation campaign to make sure any student who wanted to attend the trip was able to.
Beginning in November, parents helped to organize what I can only refer to as a media blitz to help get the word out for our band. Our goal was to get the word outside of our community because we knew that our local resources were already being stretched thin and did not want to solely seek financial support locally given the situation.
As teachers sometimes we feel that we have to handle everything on our own. When your subject is more specialized, such as a band, we can be hesitant to reach out and relinquish control. Especially when we are so used to our performances being a public reflection of what we are able to accomplish with our students.
This year forced me to ask for help and that help was delivered in droves from all over. Teachers within our school offered time for the band to pull extra rehearsals during the school day, administration and counselors helped schedule trainings and meetings to not take away from our precious class time and people who have never heard of Fairview, North Carolina donated money at a time when everyday items were already stretching their budgets thin.
The phrase “it takes a village” has never rang truer and over the next several months we were able to work a miracle to allow these students to perform in what can only be described as a once in a lifetime experience.
Students were able to get the full New York experience including visiting Times Square, Central Park, a Broadway show, and the American Museum of Natural History. Students also gained world class instruction during a scheduled clinic in the city the day before their performance on the stage at Carnegie Hall. Sometimes we all need a little help to make dreams a reality.
If you are reading this and were one of the people who supported us, myself and the band can simply say, “THANK YOU!”
