Bake Sale Dates
February 18th & 19th (right before Ash Wednesday)
April 15th & 16th (Weekend after Easter)
May 27th & 28th (Memorial Day Weekend)
Please mark your calendars and let me know if you'll be able to bring baked goods to sell, man the table after one of the Masses (or more!) or both! 🙂
Why Bake Sales?
We have a lot of music groups these days and they all need a little help. Some need more than others. Here's what we're raising for:
Breaking Bread Digital Music Library (For ALL Groups)
This is a planning tool that gives us digital access to every piece of music in our missals (as well as many pieces that are NOT in the missals) along with all the choir and instrumental parts that are available for each. I had been using this extensively to run our weekly musicians, choir, bell choirs, etc. and so when it expired in September, it became much harder and more time consuming (and sometimes impossible) to do what we used to do. So for this access, I'm hoping we can raise about $600.
Grace Notes Instruments & Supplies
Our Grace Notes classes are great fun and allow us to help young children become comfortable hearing and reading music. So far, any instruments or equipment we've needed for these classes I have just purchased myself, but we'd really love to have a set of good, sturdy classroom instruments for these kids so we can really work on growing their musicality. These kids are the future of music in the Catholic Church and I'd love to give them a solid foundation. We're hoping to raise $250-$500 for this.
Handbell Choirs
Our Handbell groups need some new folders since ours are ripping (although that black duct tape seems to be holding up okay, so far...), and MORE folders so that each group can have their own and we don't have to keep tripping over each others music all the time. 🙂 Handbell folders are not inexpensive though. It costs about $120 per set of 6 folders.
Also, we'd like to be able to grow our collection of chimes and possibly consider raising money to be able to add in real handbells. Adding to our chimes can be done one bell at a time, or it can be done in sets. A single chime is as little as $60 or the next set of chimes is about $1600. Raising money for handbells is a long-term goal that we'd need to work on over several years. The cost of a good used set starts at about $10,000. (That's a LOT of cookies to sell!)
Vocal Choir and Mens Schola
There aren't many expenses here, but we WOULD love to have good music folders for our members to perform with. So far, the Men's Schola has been using copied papers stapled in the corner... It works, but since we are right up front where everyone can see, it would be lovely to have something that looked better.
Medieval Camerata
Our new group forming is going to need some instruments. We're hoping for about $500-$750 to put towards historical instruments like lyre harps, psalteries, recorders (not the 3rd grader kind, I promise!), etc. The group can start now with some instruments I personally already own, but building that variety will be important. This group will be featured in preludes prior to mass and at OLV and/or public festivals.