Fundraising ongoing for 18 Purdy students’ trip to New York
Yard sales, can collecting, photos with Santa, Super Bowl Squares, hat days, jean days, walnut picking, sock selling, soup dinners, bake sales and raffles.
These are some fundraising opportunities the Purdy Eagle Echoes have completed, and more are on the way. The 18 children in grades 4-6 have topped $57,000 of their $114,000 goal, funding a fourday trip to New York City, where the group will perform at Carnegie Hall.
Christina Harmon, director of the Purdy Eagle Echoes, said the opportunity arose after multiple high-profile performances.
“The Eagle Echoes go to contests every year and are scored by judges,” she said. “We’ve received a 1 rating every year, and in 2021, we had a perfect score. We were then asked to do the Missouri Music Educators Association convention every year at Margaritaville at Lake of the Ozarks. Only three elementary schools were selected to perform there in January 2022. From that, we were invited to the Carnegie Hall performance.”
Famed composer Tom Shelton will conduct the performance at the National Concert Chorus, a first-of-itskind event.
“We’ll spend a lot of time in rehearsal because it’s the first time for this event,” she said. “The reason we are going is not to just say we did it, but because Purdy is a Title I district with mostly low-income inhabitants. We want the kids to know they can do amazing things and do not have to repeat the poverty cycle.”
The flight and hotel travel will be a new experience to many of the 9- to 12-year-old Eagle Echoes.
“We have some students who just rode in an elevator for the first time last year,” Harmon said. “We went to see the Arkansas Naturals play in September 2022, and that was the first time some had been to Arkansas. It was the same when we went to Oklahoma recently.
“We also have some special ed students, and we believe music is not just for the rich or the smart, but for all walks of life. We need to take these kids who can’t afford to fly in an airplane or see skyscrapers so they can see the world beyond home.”
The itinerary for the trip will keep the Echoes busy, as in between rehearsals and the June 11 performance, students will visit the 9/11 Museum, see a Broadway show (to be determined between Wicked, The Lion King or Back to the Future) and ascend the Top of the Rock NYC Observation Deck on top of Rockefeller Center.
Harmon said the Eagle Echoes have been making waves in the music scene for years. In fourth-and fifth-grade elementary choir, five students made All-state in 2020, and though none made it in 2021, 10 earned the honor in 2022.
It was the most for any one school in the state that year. This year, four students made All-State, with only two schools producing more.
Harmon said anyone interested in donating to the Eagle Echoes’ trip may contact her at 417442-3215 or charmon@purdyk12.com.
People may also make a check out to Purdy R-II Schools, Attn: Christina Harmon, and send it to 201 Gabby Gibbons Dr., Purdy, MO 65734.
