Help Sam Cover 2025 DCI Tour Fees

Hi!!

My name is Sam Stackable and I hope you have had, or are having, a wonderful day! I am a current member of the 2025 Santa Clara Vanguard Drum and Bugle Corps and a veteran of the 2024 season. I marched trumpet this past season and will continue to this year as well.

To give you a little more background on the Vanguard, SCV is an organization made up of 165 performers from the ages 16-21 from all around America, plus a few international members (go Team Japan!). Using music, dance, and emotion, we learn and develop an incredible pageantry show under the direction of extensive network of staff members and the immense skills of all participating members. This production goes up to compete against many other World-Class Corps in the Drum Corps in 20+ competitions that Vanguard participates in for duration of the 2025 DCI Summer Tour. This year, our shows stretch all the way from Seattle, Washington to Allentown, Pennsylvania, concluding in the three-day World Championship competition in Indianapolis, Indiana.

The experiences of my rookie season with SCV in 2024 are an aspect of my life I will never forget, as they have become such an integral part of who I am today. From simply giving me confidence in my everyday life to teaching me that I need to be the one to take the trash out when it's full, to sit and talk with the stranger that’s alone at lunch, and to have the integrity to do the work and prepare myself for the benefit of my section, my family, when the only person holding me accountable is myself. Looking back on my rookie season, I now understand that the magic of Vanguard that is always talked about is the journey that we go through over the course of an entire season and the great change it has on us as people, performers, and storytellers in a lifelong sense. I love Vanguard for what it has given to me and for what it allows me to share with the world. I am so thankful that I am fortunate enough to get to perform with this amazing organization for another year, however, getting the opportunity to march again is, of course, accompanied by growing tour fees.

I am asking for your help to aid me in funding my tour fees as it truly is a financial struggle at this crossroad of my life. I am expected to find a way to pay for approximately $5,450 in fees for DCI tour this year, and there is around another $1,000-$2,000 on top of that for travel expenses and free days. I am currently searching for a job, and have been for the past two months without much luck, in order to hopefully be able to contribute some money towards paying for tour fees this season. The additional upcoming expenses of attending a major university this fall are already putting financial strain on my mother, a single parent, making Vanguard a lot more of a financial burden this time around. Any assistance you are able to offer in regards to helping me with tour fees will be genuinely appreciated. Please consider contributing to this GoFundMe, as any donations will go directly towards paying off my tour fees for the season.

If you have any questions, or would like to donate in a different way please reach out to me. Thank you for anything you are willing to give!! TNPLSC

-Sam Stackable

P.S. (You can check out Vanguard at scvanguard.org, or watch this past season's production "Vagabond" here: https://youtu.be/zEAp7QceNEE?si=mPW9zWEYEmd41vTm)