Boosting student’s opportunities
Editor’s note: This is one in a series of articles marking the 50th Anniversary of Hartselle City Schools.
The March 21, 1991 issue of the Hartselle Enquirer features a half-page advertisement that begins “Hartselle Athletic Booster Club Organized in 1958 Major Supporter of All Hartselle Sports.” The ad features a photograph of students who received scholarships from the Booster Club at the 1990 All Sports Banquet and a photograph of the 1990 5A State Championship Baseball Team. A portion of the ad speaks to the purpose of the organization and to its contributions which include having “raised and spent in excess of $30,000” to “go back into [athletic] programs.” Those people assisting you in parking your cars at ballgames? Boosters.
On their page on the hartsellebands.org site, Band Boosters indicate that their purposes include providing encouragement to Hartselle’s young musicians, and their HJHS Band web-page indicates that support to students has been provided by its band boosters since the beginning of the then-Morgan County High School band program in 1947.
Those people serving you concessions at football games? Boosters.
There is a call to action in that 1991 ad which reads, “You Can Be a Part of All This.” Hartselle’s parents and grandparents and citizens at large have answered that call to action, and they have continued to answer the call across generations. In addition to efforts on the part of athletic teams and the band, efforts are made across organizations and across campuses.
Schools’ Parent Teacher Organizations certainly play an integral role in fundraising on behalf of schools and students, but schools would struggle to function as they do without the volunteers that invest hours and hours into Book Fairs, Field Days, Christmas Shops, Carnivals, and more. Parents and grandparents read, decorate, cook, speak, build, plant the list goes on. In short, across all of Hartselle’s campuses are supporters who donate generously and volunteer tirelessly.
During the holiday season we gather with family and friends, and it’s common for those gatherings and their conversations to drift toward the warm memories of Christmases past and the traditions that accompanied them. These are often sparked by an ornament that still hangs on a tree or a goodie that appears year after year on the holiday table or a Christmas Eve church service. And so the holiday is most remembered and honored not because of a particular gift, but because of a generosity of spirit and a love of family. In short, the love is the gift, and the display of love is what lives far beyond the gift itself.
Something very similar can be said for these volunteer efforts and how it is that they have continued across Hartselle’s fifty years. Not only do students benefit from the efforts, they witness the efforts and are moved to offer their help to others. Hartselle’s schools regularly work to offer something to the world around them.
Hartselle Intermediate School students were very recently involved in collecting toiletries for hurricane victims in Tennessee. These students gathered these items with the help of their parents and grandparents, but they also gathered them because they knew that reaching beyond themselves was the right thing to do. And, certainly, this was partially because the school taught them such, but it was also because many of these students had seen their parents and grandparents reach out to help their neighbors and their churches and their schools many times before. The impression made by such service is powerful and lasting.
Just as is true for the holiday, the love is the gift. It’s the gift that lasts. Like the 1991 Enquirer ad said, you can be a part of all this.
