High school band can be expensive to keep up with. From uniforms and equipment, to expenses for various performance opportunities, band costs add up, and the families of high school students can’t always afford those costs.
With the help of the high school’s community, however, bands can accumulate the funds they need to remain afloat. For Grove City High School, a longstanding fundraiser tradition ensures a legacy of financial support and brings a sense of pride both to the band and its local fans.
The legacy of the bazaars
Megan Evans
The Grove City High School’s Band and Craft Bazaars are long-standing traditions. The Spring Bazaar has taken place for roughly 30 years, following the annual bazaar in the fall semester, which celebrated its 52nd anniversary in 2025.
People from all over Grove City are involved with the bazaars, as well as contributors from around Ohio and even across state lines. These participants include more than 250 concessions and craft vendors, parents of students and the students themselves.
Year after year, the funds raised aid the band’s routine operations and other activities, such as travel. Jason Graham, the high school’s band director, values the positive impact the bazaars have on sustaining and uplifting the band.
“The bazaars are a well-oiled machine,” Graham says. “The leaders get better at it each time, so the bazaars net a little more profit each year.”
Sarah Montz, the band boosters’ chair for the bazaar, organizes supplies and coordinates much of the logistics for the event. She compiles a list of confirmed and waitlisted vendors about three months beforehand, meets with a committee for the bazaar in the following month, then recruits volunteers two weeks prior.
Through collaborating with parents, students and vendors to get the bazaars off the ground each semester, Montz recognizes the significance of the bazaars.
“They have a very proud history,” Montz says. “It’s a community event that creates a sense of pride.”
The spring bazaar takes place at Grove City High School on Sat., March 21 from 9 a.m.-4 p.m.
Day-of details
A day at the bazaar entails parents volunteering for approximately four-hour shifts. Their tasks range from assisting in the kitchen to greeting people at the doors to collect admission fees and running a fundraiser raffle.
Students set up all the physical aspects of the bazaar, such as tables, and also walk around taking customer orders for the vendors.
“These bazaars are all-encompassing in nature,” Montz says. “It takes the entire school building to pull off.”
At the event, visitors can purchase food made by Band Boosters parents. Montz usually encounters favorite, recurring recipes such as apple dumplings, chicken and noodles, and bread pudding. For this spring’s bazaar, Montz will introduce hamburgers as an option.
“Foot traffic is driven by these recipes,” Montz says. “A lot of our customers are there for the food.”
Aside from food sales, the bazaars also raise funds via admission fees.
Money matters
According to Montz, the bazaars are the school’s tried-and-true fundraising source for band essentials such as uniforms and equipment. She says the fundraiser is closing in on $100,000 for the 2025-26 year, when added to the revenue generated by the fall bazaar.
While the bazaar in the fall occurs for two days and is mostly oriented toward the holiday season, the spring bazaar focuses more on arts and crafts. For instance, the vendors tend to sell more clothing and other creative knickknacks in the spring.
Parents commit to both semester’s bazaars when they register to volunteer. Many of them return to volunteer for future bazaars after completing their initial year.
Megan Evans, the band’s chair for fundraising, manages additional ways to fund the band throughout the year. Some of her tasks include intermittent sales events selling items such as popcorn, pies, mattresses and flowers.
Evans also takes care of funds raised by parents working concessions at the Columbus Crew’s ScottsMiracle-Gro Field stadium. She also oversees dinner fundraisers that bring roughly 250 families to one restaurant.
She says her role is more invested in how fundraising efforts can reach the general public, such as by students referring the events to family and community members to supplement the importance and success of the bazaars.
“It’s cool to combine band and music but also value artistic community support at the bazaars,” Evans says. “We’re blessed in the boosters to have so many dedicated parents and other people willing to come together.”
Graham says the band is still growing and will require around $650,000 throughout the next year to accommodate growth.
Megan Evans
The bazaars’ future
Throughout her three years in the role, Montz has noticed how much more efficient each bazaar has become, especially because the parents of underclassmen tend to shadow the more seasoned parent volunteers of upperclassmen.
“For such a large band, these take a lot of effort from parents and students,” Montz says. “There’s always new ideas and innovations.”
She says her favorite part of the bazaars are hearing from vendors about how helpful and well-behaved the students are while cooperating with them.
Montz and Evans are both mothers who’ve had students participate in the band bazaars. They agree that the parents help organize and lead students, making the bazaars easier to navigate.
Some students who have graduated from the band even come back as alumni to volunteer at the bazaars.
“We’re so grateful that students continue to show up after they leave the band,” Evans says. “It shows an investment.”
Given the ongoing support of students and the community, the Grove City High School band bazaars are expected to carry on for years to come. As evidence of the bazaars’ longevity, younger visitors often aspire to become band students and work at the events.
For instance, Montz recalls her neighbor’s daughter recently starting to learn clarinet after witnessing Montz’s children playing their instruments.
“There’s always little kids there with big eyes looking up at the older students in the band,” Montz says. “That’s how this just keeps happening in the community.”
Evan Che Stefanik is an editorial assistant at CityScene Media Group. Feedback is welcome at feedback@cityscenemediagroup.com.
