Support the 2024 Crossmen Drum & Bugle Corps

I am raising money for the Crossmen Drum & Bugle Corps. As my friends know, I am an alumni of the corps and marched soprano (bugle) for 2000-2001 seasons before performing on the inaugural flugel line in 2002. It’s hard to summize what drum corps gave me in return for three summers of sleeping on gym floors across the US and rehearsing for 10-12 hours in the sun every day. So much of what we all came away with has become deeply ingrained in who we are as adults. I do know that a lot of people 18-21 years old now struggle with so much; mental health, social media pressures, and how to make a place in a world that is growing increasingly hostile. DCI gave a lot of us a place to push ourselves to be our very best while providing an enviable singularity in focus for months at a time.

This year I am marching in our 50th Anniversary Alumni Corps at the semi-finals in Indianapolis. This fundraiser is NOT for that experience, but rather to support the 2024 world class kids as they create something far greater than the sum of its parts this summer. I am joining our alumni corps nervously out of shape and also with a wide open heart to this experience. I am so looking forward to understanding more of how I became me and learning more about my fellow alumni as they are now in the world. Some of us have kept in touch - there are doctors and educators and professional musicians, among hundreds of other contributors to the world. My stepdad always said you “can never go back home,” meaning it will always be different and you will always be different. I’m very much looking forward to seeing an old home through new eyes and remembering/discovering its impact on me. In our last corps meeting, Eric Kitcheman said we will need to summon our superpowers, which according to him are our calm and our flexibility. I can’t overstate how much those two things are at the core of my existence in the world, and I’m excited to see how many of my fellow alumni share these gifts. We have representation from every year 1974 forward, and (I think) are fielding about 345 people.

This fundraiser will go directly to the youth corps to pay for their gas, food, rehearsal space expenses, etc. These kids are doing something beautifully passionate and perfectly weird for three months that will change them forever. So, if you are able to donate to make the world a better place, one rifle toss or paradiddle at a time, I’ll gladly pass on your best to the corps.