Milpitas High School Music Booster Club makes an impact on student musicians

Article sponsored by Milpitas Charity Bingo. 

For decades now, going back to the 1990s, the Milpitas High School (MHS) Music Booster Club has worked in the community to support and nurture students’ musical development.

In a testament to the Club’s ability to spur participation and loyalty, its current president, Alec Li, was a one-time participant who returned after college to help support the students of today. The Beat caught up with Li by phone. As president for the past two years, he has seen the Booster Club thrive in the post-pandemic era…

“Unfortunately, our fall season in 2020 got canceled, so there was no marching band field show,” Li explained. But the main obstacle stemming from the pandemic was that it “stopped the flow of our parent volunteers learning from each other.”

For years, senior parents who’d been involved for 4 years took on the role of teaching the younger incoming parents how to run things. But, said Li, “Without that transfer of knowledge, it was a little rough coming back in 2021…”

The Booster Club consists of 4 musical ensembles – the marching band, the concert band, the orchestra, and the choir – as well as the color guard, which emphasizes movement and dancing over outright music. 

Day to day, the organization’s focus is on making the student performers’ lives easier so they can focus on performing. This means the parent volunteers help to orchestrate funding, build show props, drive students to and from performances, and help cook meals for fundraisers, among many other things. 

In the meantime, the Booster Club also plays an active role in cultivating younger students’ musical talents so they can be ready to perform when they start attending MHS. 

The group meets on the first Thursday of every month in MHS’s main music classroom. This past May, they wrapped up their annual fundraiser, “Music in the Parks,” where bands, orchestras, and choirs featuring elementary, middle, and high school students from all over the West Coast came to MHS’s campus to put on a show. 

Over the past few years, the Booster Club’s marching band has performed all over California, from SoCal to Fresno to Sacramento, showcasing their talent. Along the way, they’ve climbed to the ranks of Western Band Association Champions.

In addition, the orchestra and choir, headed up by Director Emily Moore, are consistently growing in size and showing up at regional and all-state events, outside of the MHS ecosystem. 

As well, the marching band is a consistent presence at football games, putting on energized halftime shows. They, too, participate in regional competitions. The program has gained a lot of momentum since the cancellation of 2020’s fall season, when performances got canceled as people stayed indoors.

But as far as Li is concerned, they’ve not only come back, they have improved: “We’re stronger than we were before the pandemic. The drive of all of our parents has enhanced the experience for the kids.” 

He added, “We’re learning, but we’re also documenting how to do things, and continuously finding ways to improve how to run our organization…”

For example, they have gotten into the habit of asking parents what skills they enjoy using – from driving trucks to preparing food to taking photographs – so they can incorporate those skills into the Club’s activities. “We’re trying to be more deliberate about that and it’s working out really well,” Li shared. 

“They’re helping out in different ways that maybe we didn’t envision before the pandemic. We’re all working together to make it better for the kids.”

Learn more about the MHS Music Booster Club here.