Annual LTAPA fundraising concert returns

For many years prior to the pandemic, Lansing Central School District families and area residents alike looked forward to the annual Cookies and Carols event, organized by the Lansing Theater and Performing Arts Booster Club (LTAPA). After a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic, the event is back under a new name, Songs and Sweets.

This annual event is one of LTAPA’s largest fundraisers of the year, and money raised will go to support all that LTAPA does at the school district (tinyurl.com/2fghqn32). This year’s event will be held Dec. 5 starting at 6:30 p.m. in the middle school auditorium. Tickets are $5 and available at ltapa.ticketleap.com.

According to LTAPA founder Cindy Howell, Songs and Sweets has a long history.

“This event started as the Madrigal Feast with the High School Show Choir,” she said in an email. “This started around 1996. It was in the [high school] cafeteria for a few years, and then moved to the Middle School cafeteria. After one year in that location, Eric Hummel, the HS Band Director, asked to join the program so we added a small group from the HS band. We changed the name to Cookies and Carols and moved the event to the Auditorium. It has kept growing and here we are today!”

Safety concerns caused by the pandemic unfortunately canceled the fundraiser for two years in a row, but organizers are glad to bring it back under a new name. LTAPA members Christine Montague, Christine Maloney and Denise Robinson shared why this event is important to them and the whole Lansing community.

As Maloney explained, Songs and Sweets is a great way to bring the entire community together, as there will be plenty of performances by students and many local businesses have provided prizes such as gift certificates that audience members can win through the event’s raffle.

“The community is a huge, huge factor in this event, whether it’s the people that come to it [or] the students that perform in it,” she said. “We put together a program, and in it, we have 41 advertisers who have bought advertisements to help support the programs that we have. And then … having the community also donate raffle items and stuff, it just means so much. And we’re so appreciative to them for their help and support with this because we honestly couldn’t do it just by ourselves.”

Robinson said that organizers and community members are excited to have the event return, especially because it traditionally was the “kickoff to the year’s concerts.”

“Our concert season starts in December, and it’s always been the first Monday in December, and then concerts go into full swing right after that,” she said. “We do charge admission, even to the parents of the participants because it is [a] fundraiser, but we are generally sold out every year. And not only do the parents come, but a lot of community members love this event. It’s just so much fun to buy raffle tickets and put the raffle tickets in the bags of the items you want to win. I’ve won many wonderful things over the years.”

Getting back into the rhythm of organizing this event hasn’t been easy, as lead organizer Montague can attest, but it’s been a labor of love for her and everyone else.

“It’s a lot of fun,” Montague said. “It’s great to raise money for the theater group. Christie Maloney has been doing a great job also with the programs for all the concerts, and so that also is doing really well in terms of bringing money in to help LTAPA. So, … we’re not relying just on the one fundraiser. But this is so much fun that we wanted to get it going.”

The success of the middle school’s recent performance of “Seussical Jr.” has brought a welcome return to normalcy for LTAPA and the rest of the district, giving organizers hope that Songs and Sweets will go off without a hitch.

“We were able to go back to selling concessions,” Robinson said regarding “Seussical” earlier this month. “We’re fully open this year, so we’re able to get back to a lot of the activities that we weren’t able to do the past three years. So, the middle school just completed their performance of ‘Seussical Jr.’ last week, and it was amazing. They had crowds every night, and we were able to sell concessions and 50/50 tickets the whole time. And it was a very successful run. I think people were very happy to be back in business — parents, students, teachers, everybody.”

Still, organizers are taking some precautions with Songs and Sweets this year.

“With COVID, we have put in some different protocols that we have not done in the past,” Maloney said. “In the past, we had a huge tray of cookies that were kind of just passed down the rows with people. So, to keep little hands and sneezes and everything off the tray of cookies, we’re actually going to meet on the Sunday before and bag up cookies. So, we’ll have the bagged cookies, and instead of open containers of punch, we’re going to have juice boxes. So, we’re trying to be COVID friendly but still have the same experience the cookies and sweets and everything that they can have.”

Even with some adjustments, Maloney and others said that the community is more than ready to celebrate next month.

“We just posted the Facebook event for Songs and Sweets the other night, and we’ve already gotten a lot of feedback, a lot of excitement and a lot of shares,” Maloney said. “Everybody’s really excited, I think, because it’s a wonderful event. Also, it’s kind of a sign of things are normal again. So, it’s nice to be able to bring this to everyone in the community.”

For more information about LTAPA, visit lansingschools.org/Page/98 or facebook.com/LansingLTAPA/.

Lansing at Large appears every Wednesday in Tompkins Weekly. Send story ideas to editorial@VizellaMedia.com.