Helping my old roots to grow

With July now over, August stretching its legs and summer whizzing by, townies begin the final sprint to fall.

However, for some incoming freshmen, high school graduation was a mere two months ago — and suddenly Welcome Week is right around the corner.
Like most graduates, I too, relished graduation. But a visit back to my alma mater was at the top of my list of things to do.

Returning to your high school can be traumatizing enough — but returning to find extracurricular funds cut is a killer.

As a theater student, extracurriculars clearly had a huge impact on my life. Through programs such as music and theatre, I grew into the person I am now, and I watched my friends who were involved in activities such as athletics and newspaper experience something similar.

Needless to say, this cause got added to my list of summer objectives and helped me rediscover Bloomington.

Little did I know that I would help set up a fundraising production and perform on Bloomington High School South’s stage, the same stage I was certain I’d left forever, in order to raise money for teachers’ extracurricular activity stipends.

Though acting with old classmates was a blast, the fact that it needed to be done at all was extremely disheartening. How could teachers not get paid for the hours of hard work they put in? I know that times are tough and budgets are tight — but cutting extracurriculars? Really?

As an artist I am all too familiar with budget cuts and low funding, but to see all the extracurriculars — the part of high school that makes all the acne, hormones and embarrassment worth it — be cut was too much to bear.

Apparently I wasn’t the only one to think so. The last two weeks have been marked by one of the biggest group efforts I have ever seen: thousands of people all locating their inner Samaritan and giving to the “All for All” campaign, which raised $675,000, 90 percent of the Aug. 1 goal — $750,000.

This summer I saw the townies of Bloomington rally together in a time of need and help one another pull through.

Though a perhaps unplanned destination on this summer’s map, helping and observing the fundraising efforts of so many individuals was worth any sacrificed trip to the pool.

So while incoming freshmen might be frantically trying to escape the final clutches of high school — and believe me, I know the feeling — I would advise them not to wander too far.

After all, as I was reminded lately, a person’s roots are far too important to be forgotten.