Visalia’s performing arts students perform at the annual Band Showcase event after temporary hiatus from of the COVID-19 shutdown
VISALIA – For the first time in two years the Visalia Education Foundation announced that their annual band show will once again give Visalia students an opportunity to share their talents and raise funds for performing arts programs.
The education foundation announced the return of their annual Band Showcase for an 18th year of music and other performing arts. The showcase will be presented in Visalia at Golden West High School’s Community Stadium on Monday, Oct. 3. Gates will open at 5:30 p.m. and the program will begin at 7 p.m.
“It’s an event that a lot of the public returns to, year after year after year,” Myron Sheklian, vice president of the Visalia Education Foundation, said. “There’s always an abundance of parents, grandparents and family members that attend. It’s just another way of supporting their students, their children, their families.”
The high school bands that will be performing are students from El Diamante, Golden West, Mt. Whitney and Redwood High School. At the showcase, band students will perform their halftime show performance or a variation of what they usually perform at football games. Additionally, the high school cheer and dance squads will also be performing at the event.
Ticket donations are available at the event and can be purchased on Golden West campus from a ticket booth. Tickets are $6 per person or $20 per family. All profits from this event go to supporting music and performance programs at schools in the Visalia Unified School District (VUSD). It will help with the purchase of things like musical instruments.
According to Sheklian, the foundation has received several emails and phone calls from band directors as well as dance and cheerleading squads, thanking them for bringing this event back after the two year pause in operation. Sheklian said although the performance programs continued throughout the past two years, their funding did take a hit as they did not have many opportunities to perform and raise money.
“It’s exciting for those groups as well because they, once again, are getting to perform and share their skills and talents that they’ve developed,” Sheklian said.
Sponsors for the event are the Visalia Unified Teachers Association (VUTA) and ServiceMaster by Benevento, who have both been loyal sponsors for several years.
The Visalia Education Foundation is a non-profit public benefit corporation founded in 1983. To best benefit VUSD students, the nonprofit’s purpose is to raise funds to support extra programs, like performing arts, in VUSD to best secure and distribute contributions from individuals, corporations and foundations. Further information about the non-profit can be found at the Visalia Education Foundation website or the GuideStar website.
