Send students from low-income families to overnight band camp on college campuses!

• Participation in band correlates to better academic performance and staying in school.
• Making new friends from other backgrounds at camp builds confidence and can be life-altering for a young person.
• The project started with middle school students in 2017. In 2024 we started sending high school students.
• This is usually the first exposure these students will have with the college environment.
• Band camp is fun and going away to summer camp is a completely new experience for these students. If you remember what it felt like to go to overnight camp for the first time, you'll understand how excited these young students are when they arrive on campus and check into their dorm rooms.
  

2025 Goal: send 36 students to band camp at UT San Antonio and Texas State.
Fundraising goal: $25,000

The overnight camp tuition at Texas State in 2024 was $635, and it was $690 at UT San Antonio. UT Austin's camp has been suspended since 2020. To send 36 students will cost roughly $25,000.    Your tax-deductible donations of any amount will help send an additional young person to band camp!

Stats:

86 middle and high school students have been sent to band camp over 5 years:

• 2017: 6 to the University of Texas at Austin
• 2018: 5 to the University of Texas at Austin
• 2019: 11 to the University of Texas at Austin
• 2022: 8 to the University of Texas at San Antonio
• 2023: 25 total students: 12 to the University of Texas at San Antonio, 12 to Texas State University, 1 to the University of North Texas
• 2024: 36 total students - 16 to the University of Texas at San Antonio (6 from Austin & 10 from San Antonio), 20 Austin students to Texas State. Half were middle school students and half were high school students.

Prior to 2023, this had been a private initiative.  As of 2023, under the auspices of Austin Creative Alliance, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, donations are now tax deductible. In 2023, 55% of the $14,650 expense of sending 25 students to band camp was raised via donations ($3,700) and grants ($3,200).  This enabled more than doubling the number who would've gone to camp otherwise. Similarly, in 2024, the donations and grants enabled us to send about three times more students than would have otherwise been able to go to band camp.

A huge thank you to the 27 donors who contributed in 2023 and 2024!

A huge thank you to our 2023 and 2024 grant providers!

• The Webber Family Foundation
• H-E-B #HEBhelpingHere
• The Christopher Catanese Foundation
• The McComb Family Foundation
• The Betty Stieren Kelso Foundation 

What it takes to make this work:

• A university band camp that is supportive of the initiative, e.g., by allowing one bulk payment after all the students are registered.
• Band directors at Title 1 public schools that can recommend and assist students. Band directors have often driven their students to camp on their summer break, and they've ensured that they have use of school instruments during camp. There are some amazingly dedicated band directors in the school systems who've been essential to the project's success.
  
• Someone to communicate with parents, especially in Spanish. The concept of camp is unfamiliar to many families. The camp websites are often only in English, and it's not obvious what to pack, how to check in, and how to navigate the campus.
  
• MONEY! We cannot send as many students as we've sent in 2023 and 2024 without donations.
  
• This concept can work anywhere. Contact us if you'd like more information or would like to be involved. 

History and Future Plans:

A grandmother wondered how she could help kids from low-income families attend band camp as her granddaughter had. The director of the Longhorn Music Camp at The University of Texas at Austin embraced her suggestion that she’d fund deserving students if she could figure out how to find them. With the assistance of a school band director who could coordinate with students' families and arrange transportation, the idea quickly jelled.  Twenty-two students from Dobie Middle School, Martin Middle School, and other middle schools in low-income areas of Austin attended UT Austin's camp via scholarships from 2017 to 2019. Regrettably, the pandemic shut down all the camps in 2020. In 2022, we enabled eight San Antonio students to attend The University of Texas at San Antonio's Summer Band Institute. In 2023, thanks to contributions and grants, twenty-five students from Austin and San Antonio attended week-long overnight band camp at UT San Antonio and Texas State. In 2024, thanks to contributions and grants, thirty-six students from Austin and San Antonio attended week-long overnight band camp at UT San Antonio and Texas State.

Most of the selected students have been from Austin or San Antonio, but we are happy to help economically disadvantaged students in any school district.  Students are selected from Title 1 (high percentage of at-risk students) schools by their band directors.  We'll start selecting students for next summer's band camps in March 2025.

Excerpts from recommendations from middle school band directors:

• "Most of our kids never even ask about camp because they struggle to pay for the instrument usage fee ($25). Thank you for helping give our kids a chance!"
• "She might be our favorite student to teach. She has the best attitude and is friendly with all of the other students. She comes in early every day to practice and is improving daily."
• "Javier is our top 6th-grade clarinet player. He comes to the band hall every day during advisory to get extra practice and one on one time. He has also started recruiting others to come and practice and formed a clarinet group."

Excerpts from thank-you notes after attending band camp:

• "This is Felipe the Tuba Player that was selected to go to the UT Band Camp. I just wanted to tell you some of the things that I got to experience. Let’s start with the music camp itself. It was great we got to lots of cool music. Let’s move on to the dorm. The dorm was great. I got put with a nice roommate. The walking part was not hard I got used to it. Everything was a great experience. When I’m older I would want to donate money so that kids in a band that can’t go can go for free and get to experience the UT band camp."
• "I’m from Resnik Middle School in San Antonio, and I play the Tenor Saxophone. I have enjoyed my time here and got to do many things I’m usually unable to do. I had a wonderful time with new friends. I’m very excited to go back to school and know that I have a new set of knowledge of my instrument!"
• "My name is Sonia and I play the French horn. One of my favorite parts about this camp is being able to make a lot more new friends, and being able to experience and learn more about music. Thanks to your generosity I was able to come here and have the courage to get outside my shell and able to have the best experiences probably in my whole life."

Inquiries and comments: texasbandcampscholarships@googlegroups.com