Corwin Garber

The Paly choir performs at their spring recital "PalGlee". The upcoming fundraiser is the largest that they have ever hosted.

Palo Alto High School's choir is organizing a raffle to help support the 70-member choral group. Tickets sold will give aid to students who are having trouble paying for the choir's 11-day summer trip to Budapest, Prague and Vienna.

The raffle will also help fund the whole choir program, including paying for music purchases, accompanists and guest artists.

"Our choir, like most school programs, requires a significant amount of money to run," junior Margot Gerould said. "From the music to the dresses to the technology we use in the classroom to scholarships, it adds up."

The tickets are $10 each and $40 for five. The prizes for winning the raffle are as follows: in fourth place a one-hour aerial tour of the bay for two ($350 value), in third place an Apple iPad ($730 value), in second place $1000 cash and in first place a trip for two to Paris over Veterans Day in 2010 ($3400 value).

"I have sold about 65 [tickets] by advertising to family and friends of my parents but a lot of students have been using mass emails that have been creating tons of good results," junior Michileen Oberst said.

One of the difficult parts about selling ticket is that they can only be sold to people 18 and older.

"The most challenging thing has been the age limit; we can't sell to anyone under 18," Gerould said. "People have really had to reach out to their family, friends, and neighbors in order to sell tickets."

The trip to Paris is funded by the American Council for International Studies. They provide a three night and four day trip to Paris with organized activities so that the entire choral group can fundraise money for their trip.

"The parents got very excited when they heard about the Paris trip," Paly choir director Michael Najar said. "They decided to organize a large raffle event and added three more prizes."

The funding for the three other prizes comes from The Friends of the Palo Alto High School Choir, a non-profit organization supporting the choral program. However, this organization does not have enough funds foxxr the expensive programs of the Paly choir.

"The Paly Choir receives only $2400 from the District, but sheet music costs about $140 per piece," junior Sarah Jundt said. "When you add the expenses for our accompanist and for all of the travel that we do, we need to do a lot of fundraising."

The choir has already raised about $13,000 and their goal is to raise a total of $20,000 before their spring concert in mid-May. According to Najar, the parents have been extremely involved in the process in trying to find incentives for the students to sell tickets.

"I would not be able to do anything without the parents and students they have been terrific," Najar said. "This is one of the only raffles I have heard of where students get prizes for selling tickets. The parents have made it so that if you sell 20 tickets, you get a gift card to the store of your choice."

The choir is currently preparing for several competitions and performances.

"This year, we decided to do a bigger fundraiser than anything we've ever done before, Gerould said. "The fact that we're almost three quarters of the way done a month before the end of the raffle shows just how far people are willing to go to support this program."