Orchesis is an after school extracurricular activity at RB that starts in the fall and ends in the end of April. Madelyn Doyle, the main Orchesis instructor who’s in charge of it, runs the fundraising for it. Rehearsed dances and choreographs are done and created and then performed live with all kinds of different dancing styles. However, Orchesis is more than just dancing because they need to fundraise to keep up with the program. They usually start in February, but the end of the fundraising depends on what’s being fundraised.

Orchesis is split up into two groups. One group are the regular Orchesis members and then the Orchesis apprentices that are more skilled, but they still all fundraise together.

“Yes, both groups fundraise. We usually start fundraising as soon as the program starts which is in February,” said Doyle.

The ending of the fundraiser depends on what is being fundraised. They have fundraised boxes of candy before and flowers.

“Everyone got their own box of candy and had to sell it throughout the school and that we took two and a half weeks to do, but we’ve also had, in other places, not Orchesis, a flower sale that took a little longer, to talk to neighbors, parents, family friends, people like that,” said Doyle.

They do not only sell basic things like candy and flowers. They do other things to fundraise as well that does not involve food items.

“We’ve done a bunch of stuff. We’ve held workshops for younger kids in middle school and elementary school. We’ve sold things at football games like glow sticks and cookies and things like that,” said Doyle.

Orchesis fundraises for many things, besides costumes.

“We have fundraised for costumes if we want new costumes to wear on stage. We’ve also fundraised for choreographers like a guest artist to come in and teach us a dance,” said Doyle.

All of their fundraisers are successful, even though it does depend on the goal of the fundraising. Most of the Orchesis members enjoyed it and enjoyed eating the candy as well.

Doyle said, “If we’re trying to get to a really high goal we probably want to go for those people that will donate more versus, you know, if we’re just selling in the school then we’re probably thinking a lower number and then kind of go from there,”