Slippery Rock University’s Marching Pride was invited to join in the 2019 St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Dublin, Ireland. Being included in the parade is a prestigious accomplishment that is not easily obtained. The band held two meetings over the past week to discuss further fundraising plans, itinerary updates and registration information.
Students who wish to go on the trip will have to be members of the Marching Pride in the Fall, and take “Parade Band” as a class in the Spring of 2019. All members are expected to hold a certain musical standard as well, to ensure the best performance quality for the parade.
Dr. Jonathan Helmick, Director of Bands and the SRU Marching Pride, went through a rigorous application process to help Slippery Rock University’s Marching Pride stand out from the other large bands across the world vying to attend the parade.
“The process is pretty involved actually,” Helmick said. “From when we got accepted or putting through the application process, we had to submit video, we had to submit a photograph, we also had to have letters of recommendations from other directors from around the country. So, I would actually send out video footage to people, one in particular who had gone on the parade before, just to get a letter basically stating that we met the quality they were looking for.”
The Marching Pride is pairing up with various companies to help members fundraise for the trip. However, fundraising as a college student is no easy task, something that secretary of the Marching Pride Alaina Stroud knows all too well.
“Fundraising’s been difficult because we’re in college so it’s difficult to get people to be able to fundraise efficiently,” Stroud said. “It’s hard to ask a college student to go back home and say hey mom can you help me with this, but that’s kinda the most effective way to do it at this state.”
From pasta to fragrance products, the Marching Pride is setting up many different types of fundraising to help subsidize their trip abroad and appeal to various tastes. Students interested in helping out can go to Wieners Gone Wild, a local restaurant, on April 23 where ten percent of all profits earned that day will go directly toward the funding of their trip.
Not only is this a great opportunity for the Marching Pride to represent Slippery Rock University but also to represent the United States of America as a whole.
