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He helped do some good for this state...
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">ST. AMANT, La.-To the 1,058 from around U.S. who made this high school marching band whole after historic flooding:<br>Thank you.<br>Thank you. <a href="https://t.co/YgUJui9WgL">pic.twitter.com/YgUJui9WgL</a></p>— Peter King (@SI_PeterKing) <a href="https://twitter.com/SI_PeterKing/status/781249023453728769">September 28, 2016</a></blockquote>
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Jimmy Garoppolo, Jack Del Rio highlight NFL Week 1 | The MMQB with Peter King
Peter King's Mailbag: NFL Future Starts Thursday | The MMQB with Peter King
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">ST. AMANT, La.-To the 1,058 from around U.S. who made this high school marching band whole after historic flooding:<br>Thank you.<br>Thank you. <a href="https://t.co/YgUJui9WgL">pic.twitter.com/YgUJui9WgL</a></p>— Peter King (@SI_PeterKing) <a href="https://twitter.com/SI_PeterKing/status/781249023453728769">September 28, 2016</a></blockquote>
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Jimmy Garoppolo, Jack Del Rio highlight NFL Week 1 | The MMQB with Peter King
We need to help the good people of Louisiana
Entering season 20 of this column, one of the things I think about most fondly is your generosity and kindnesses. We’ve had some good times raising money for important causes—recreation facilities for troops at remote bases in Afghanistan, financial aid for Paul Zimmerman—and you’ve always opened your hearts. I’d like to enlist you on a new fund-raising project. We’re going to raise $75,000 to help a high school band in Louisiana.
I didn’t say, “We’re going to try to raise $75,000.” No, we’re going to do this. I need you to help. This cause is a little different. The more you read about the flood-related devastation in the little towns and parishes of Louisiana, the more you’re stunned that it’s gotten so little attention around the country. The NFL and other bodies have helped local football teams get new equipment and uniforms, and there’s been FEMA and Red Cross and United Way help for the neediest places and people. I went looking, with the help of a key outreach person in the state, Saints senior director of community and governmental affairs Stephen Pate, for a need that wasn’t being met. Pate found a 248-member competitive high school marching band in St. Amant (pronounced “SAN-a-ma,” like “Panama”, 50 miles west of New Orleans. There, the Amite River, typically 2.5 feet above sea level, rose to an all-time high of 17.9 feet in August, damaging 97 percent of the property in the town of 10,700—and leaving the band room at 1,983-student St. Amant High underwater. The damage: $285,000.
Band director Craig Millet begged and borrowed instruments from the region, got some out of closets of locals, and pieced together enough hand-me-down instruments to have the band’s first post-flood practice last Thursday, so the band would be able to play at the first home football game Friday night. “I almost started crying,” said senior trumpet player Truvie Ficklin. “The first song we played was the alma mater. And there is one part where the trumpets, we don’t play, so I was singing along to alma mater. The words were something about, ‘We’ll make it through the hardships no matter what comes our way, because we’re Gators.’ And I was tearing up and trying not to cry.”
“That’s the best I’ve ever heard our alma mater,” Millet said Saturday. “One half of the kids, I bet, couldn’t hold back tears when it was over.”
The band has been scotch-taped together, just so it can perform on a limited basis. But all the wooden instruments are destroyed, and even cheap hand-me-downs for some of the lost pieces can’t be found. So The MMQB is going to team with the United Way to get this band back near full strength. In fact, the United Way has gotten us a third of the way there, contributing the first $25,000 to the cause. (I mean, hat tip to the United Way. Thanks so much.) Every cent donated to the band will go to the band—there will be no administrative fees. The United Way assures me if you donate $20, it’s $20 for the band, free and clear. The United Way has given us a page to use for donations.
The $75,000 will give the band enough to jump start the major surgery needed to get the band back to normal. It will give Millet the money to buy all of the piccolos, drums, drum hardware, saxophones, chairs and stands that must be bought new. Did you know the two Yamaha wood piccolos the band needs cost $2,300 each? The replacement tenor sax costs $2,200.
I will make this offer: The United Way has kick-started us, with $25,000. I need you to give $45,000 over the next 11 days—by Friday, Sept. 23. If we’re at $70,000, I’ll get us home. Let’s work to get this band near whole before the end of their football season. One out of every eight kids at this school plays in the band. It’s a great community tradition, always one of the best 10 bands in the state. “We want to get back to normal as a band and as a community,” said Millet. We can do our little thing. If we do a little bit of the little thing, we’ll help a very big thing happen. Go here to donate; every dollar helps.
Peter King's Mailbag: NFL Future Starts Thursday | The MMQB with Peter King
