Monday, June 5, 2017

NO FLOCKING, BUT MIDNIGHT MADNESS ROCKS ON

If you feel like something is missing from the usual end-of-year Columbia High School graduation activities, you're right.

There's no flocking.

As part of the annual fundraisers for Midnight Madness, the all-night alcohol-free party for graduates, organizers had regularly sold "flocking" packages, in which donors could target their friends or neighbors with a "flock" of plastic flamingos. Pay a price and your "victims" woke up to a front lawn of the fake feathered friends.

Others could pay to have them removed and still more money came in from "insurance" paid to make sure you did to get flocked.

But Midnight Madness co-chair Holy Guber, herself a senior parent, said the time and planning needed for that particular stunt was too much for this year's team.

"It was a tremendous fundraiser for us that raised a lot of money for many years," she said. "We just couldn't run one more and it really requires diligence."

Interest was also down for that piece of the fundraising puzzle with just about $1,200 to $1,400 raised most years. "It wasn't huge," she said. "If it was a lot of money, I would have tried to do something."

For an event that takes about $52,000 to run, the revenue seemed small.

But that does not mean other money-making options for donations are not out there for the event that usually includes close to 400 graduates. 

Some popular donation activities include the graduate lawn signs and black-and-red bows: "They are a staple that senior parents look forward to." There are also a few Mapsopoly games still available that raise funds at $25 each.

But Guber said most of the operating budget still comes from ticket sales to the party, which run $100 per student. Some low-income students receive scholarships, as many as 50 per year, she said.

This year's party is set for graduation night, June 22, again at an undisclosed location, Guber said. Last year's party took to the water on a cruise. But this year it is back on land.

Guber promised it is "a great venue full of all kinds of activities, games and a major arcade-like atmosphere, supplemented with a room for dancing and a D.J."

For more information, check out the Midnight Madness web page HERE.

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