TriCities Homeschool Band Hosts Fundraiser to Replace $12,000 Worth of Stolen Equipment

Kathy Lamb conducting Concert and Symphonic Band.

The TriCities Homeschool Band will be holding their first ever fundraiser, a $5 spaghetti dinner, this Friday, March 27th at 6:00 pm to raise funds to help replace the $12,000 worth of equipment stolen from them earlier this year. The dinner will be held at Cross Roads Christian Church in Gray and will come with a concert by their two more experienced bands.

The equipment and trailer that held it, were discovered missing in early January when the band met back up after their Christmas break. They had parked the trailer at Tacoma Church of God, the same place they had been leaving it for over 5 years without any comparable incident. Insurance has covered $10,000 of the replacement value, but they still have $2000 to make up.

Other than music stands (there were over 60 of them), most of the stolen goods were percussion instruments. The band's director Kathy Lamb explained that it isn't just the percussionists who will benefit from their replacement though. "All the kids will," she said, "The percussionists play them, but we also use them in our summer band camp where everyone has percussion class. And we have other kids who play wind instruments, but who go in and take percussion class during the year. So a lot of kids."

The TriCities Homeschool Band was started for "all the kids," too. Around a decade ago, there was no place for homeschoolers to play in a band, so they formed one, but made it open to anyone who wanted to play. There are about 75 instrumentalists in the band today, including public schoolers, private schoolers, and a handful of adults.

Though it's called the TriCities Homeschool Band, it's actually three bands: Beginning Band, for people, 4th grade through adults, who've never played an instrument before; Concert Band, for anyone who's played at least a year; and the most advanced group, Symphonic Band, which is audition-only. The fundraiser dinner will feature the Concert and Symphonic Bands.

Tickets for the $5 spaghetti dinner can be purchased at the door or by contacting Kathy Lamb at kathy@wlamb.com.

If you would like to support the band in some other way, you can replace an item directly through the TriCities Homeschool Band's Amazon Wish List.