Grant Money Helps Gift New Instruments to Franklin County HS Band Members

Some Franklin County High School band members are strutting a little prouder this year thanks to a $10,000 grant.

The grant comes from the Georgia Foundation for Public Education’s Rural Grant Fund program and was awarded to seven Georgia high schools this year. Each of the seven schools received $10,000.

At their regular meeting Tuesday evening, Band Director Chris Sampson game before the Board of Education and Acting School Superintendent Chuck Colquitt to talk about how the grant money is being used.

Sampson said part of the money was used to purchase new instruments for band members.

One of my goals as a Band Director, since we’re a rural school, is to try and get every single student a high-quality instrument, which is expensive,” he explained. “For a lot of our families on a tight budget, they may go to a local pawn shop and find an instrument there but sometimes when you get those low-priced instruments, it’s also low-quality which then becomes an issue. So now my goal of 100% of the students (having a new high-quality instrument) is now up to about 45%. I’ll tell you now, I’m not a parent but watching kids open up brand new instruments and tearing off the plastic and the cardboard, it’s like Christmas day. It’s very rewarding.”

Sampson said if possible he plans to apply for the grant again next year. He said so far this year, the Band Department has received $15,000 in grant funding.

The rest of this award money will go towards another large fundraiser, he said. The department is working to raise $50,000 for new uniforms.

Meantime, Sampson said the band did very well at a recent band competition in Fannin County.

“We competed against six other bands in our classification. From that, we received first in class drum major, first in class majorettes, first in class color guard, first in class band overall, and second in class percussions,” he said. “Our overall ranking out of 12 bands we got fifth out of all twelve bands that were there.”

After the fall break, Sampson said the band will compete again at their final competition in Flowery Branch.