Junior Color Guard member Gina Linasalata arrives at Bowie early in the morning. She takes her place near the exit of the band lot, and she holds up her sign.
On Saturday, Sept. 14, Color Guard hosted their annual BOPA and paper shredding fundraiser event. This is the third time that they’ve hosted this event. Students and their families are invited to bring various items that are typically hard to recycle to Bowie to get rid of them in a more environmentally friendly way.
“We are recycling batteries, oil, paint, and antifreeze, but if you don’t have any of those, we can’t recycle them. People can get rid of their junk,” Linasalata said. “Make sure that everything is sealed. We cannot recycle open oil cans and anything that is not in BOPA which stands for batteries, oil, paint and antifreeze.”
Early that morning morning, the Color Guard arrived at the school to set up for their recycling event. Different members of the guard set up in various corners of the lot to spin flags and hold signs to draw attention to the event. They also made sure to have multiple empty trucks with eager parents of color guard students ready to drive them to the recycling event once the trucks are full.
“We have this thing called razzle-dazzle, and it’s people who go outside with flags and spin them in the street,” Linasalata said. “It’s like an advertisement, so we’re like sign spinners but we hold signs and we have flags, and we’re just dancing trying to get people’s attention.”
People began to line the band parking lot with cars containing recyclables and as people drive through the lot, their recyclables get handed to a parent or color guard member which then gets placed in an available truck to be driven to the recycling center. Then the person who has just donated recyclables is asked if they would like to donate to the color guard.
“It’s really easy, you just pull up and drop off your items, it’s completely free, and you can choose to donate,” junior Kendall Laney said. “My dad’s one of the truck drivers, so he drove a bunch of stuff to the recycling center and they disposed of it.”
They also provided paper shredders so that people can shred documents that they can’t shred at home. This is the first year that they’ve added the shredder to the recycling event. Previously, people could only recycle batteries, oil, paint and antifreeze.
“This is our third year doing [BOPA]. A former Color Guard parent who heard about this idea brought it over to our organization,” advisor Daniel Riley said. “We get a lot of people that come through dropping off old stuff that they’ve had forever. BOPA is helping people cleanse that stuff and also helps the environment as well.”
BOPA is not only a recycling event but it’s also a fundraising opportunity for the color guard. The Color Guard are required to fund their budget all on their own because they are considered a club, which means that they have to get creative with fundraising ideas.
“Winter guard doesn’t get funding from the school because it’s classified as a club, so we have to make up all the money ourselves and this is one of the ways we do it,” Linasalata said. “I hope that we raise $2,000 this year. We usually do good with about 50 people showing up, so I’m hoping we can double that this year.”
There isn’t a lot of planning that has to go on to help facilitate the event each year. The biggest thing the color guard has to organize each year is making sure they have vehicles that can take the recyclables to the recycling center. Other than that, everything else stays the same from last year.
“I think it’ll benefit the community because a lot of people just have this stuff in their house and they don’t know what to do with it and now we can take it from them and we can dispose of it in an environmentally friendly way,” Laney said. “Hopefully it’s a good fundraiser for us and I’m glad that we get to help people get rid of stuff.”
The group was able to raise over $5,000 within four hours. They plan to use the money for the winter guard activities. This money is extremely helpful to the guard because a lot of things needed for the winter guard are very expensive. They have to buy costumes, props and pay for transportation to competitions.
“The money raised goes towards our winter guard organization, and that’s so helpful because it is so expensive,” Riley said. “It helps lower the cost for our trip to nationals at Dayton, Ohio. Since we’ve hosted BOPA for three years, it’s an easy fundraiser to do.”
Other than the BOPA event, the color guard has several other fundraisers to help them gain money to fund their program. They host events throughout the year with different themes and purposes to get the community involved and interested in donating.
“We have a winter fundraiser that’s coming up and we will also be doing a clinic for younger kids so we have a bunch of other events that happen throughout the year,” Riley said. “Considering that our season goes all the way through mid-April. We also have sponsorships that are running all year long.”
Riley hopes that students who help lead this fundraiser gain ideas for future fundraisers that they run and that they can make some money while at it. Next year, members of the guard hope to improve the way they spread the word about their fundraising events and start the event later in the day to adjust to the fact that many people sleep in on the weekends.
“I think the thing we could improve [for next year] is pushing the event back an hour later because I feel like on a Saturday people are getting up a little later and more traffic is coming in at a later part of the morning,” Riley said. “BOPA is for a good cause, and [members of the color guard] can use BOPA for ideas in the future when they have organizations that they want to work with and help make some money.”
