The Saipan Southern High School\u2019s Manta Ray Band is scrambling to find $300,000 to cover the travel costs it expects to incur when it plays at the 2012 London Olympics.<\/p>\n
SSHS principal Jesse Tudela disclosed to Saipan Tribune yesterday that the group has only about $45,000 right now, almost half of which has yet to be collected from pledges.<\/p>\n
Early this year, Education Commissioner Dr. Rita A. Sablan had pledged $10,000 for the group, of which $5,000 has already been deposited in the group\u2019s account. Lt. Gov. Eloy S. Inos had also promised to donate $15,000 to the band.<\/p>\n
Because of the current financial state of the government and the crisis besetting the local economy, Tudela said that donations and financial help may be difficult to secure this year.<\/p>\n
He is still optimistic, however, that the Manta Ray Band will be able to find money for their journey. Tudela said the group will schedule successive mini-concerts on island to raise the needed funds.<\/p>\n
The SSHS Manta Ray Band will send a 50-member delegation with 10 chaperons to the London Olympics. Each member will also be asked to pay $1,500 for the two-week travel in summer.<\/p>\n
The Manta Ray Band is among a few handpicked musicians from around the world that will make up the musical orchestra for the Olympics. <\/p>\n
Last Wednesday, Tudela sought the assistance of CNMI Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan who promised to provide 1,000 flame tree seedlings that can be used by the group in a tree-planting fundraiser. He said the group intends to sell the seedling for $100 apiece to sponsors. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Saipan Southern High School\u2019s Manta Ray Band is scrambling to find $300,000 to cover the travel costs it expects to incur when it plays at the 2012 London Olympics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-155481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155481\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}