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Troopers Supporting Troopers for Scholarships
- Apr 12, 2022
- 1 min read
We all know that paying for drum corps is a concern for members and their families. Here’s a little glimpse into just one item - scholarships – that members can pursue to help with their tour fees.
Currently, several members of the 2022 Troopers are vying for scholarship money from our friends at Marching Arts Education. Seventeen Troopers currently welcome your votes in round one of this online competition. First stage voting runs through midnight (Eastern) on Thursday, April 13.
The top 20 vote-getters from round one will advance to stage two. Our Troopers face competition from dozens of other members from many other DCI organizations. Please visit
www.marchingartseducation.com/scholarship/ to vote and help our Troopers advance.
Round two voting for the MAE awards begins on April 18, 2022 and ends at midnight (Eastern) on April 24, 2022. This voting will take place on the Marching Arts Education website and on Instagram. A scholarship panel at Marching Arts Education will review the top applicants and provide additional decision input. Winners will be announced on April 25, 2022.
Drum Corps International oversees more than $56,000 in scholarship funds. These scholarships are available to DCI World Class, DCI Open Class, and SoundSport team members enrolled and participating in summer programming. Deadlines vary with many application periods closing very soon. Check out www.dci.org/static/scholarships
More member support posts are coming. Watch for details on our sponsor-a-member program and our new best practices campaign for member fundraising.
Tour costs have gotten so high that it feels like fundraising and scholarships are basically part of the activity now, not just an extra. I appreciate posts like this that give actual dates and a clear path instead of vague “support our members” messaging. Totally unrelated, but the way people lean on online communities for help (votes, shares, whatever) is kind of similar to how folks trade tips around useful hairstyle ai ideas when they’re trying to make a decision with limited time and money. Hope this series includes some options for members who don’t have big social followings.
The voting piece is interesting because it kind of turns scholarships into a public-facing campaign, which can be motivating but also stressful for members. I’d love to see more transparency later on what the panel weighs versus pure vote totals. Random aside: the “support your people online” angle is something I’ve seen pop up in other spaces too, like when folks share creative projects at https://imgg.ai/styles/ghibli and rally friends to interact. Hopefully the attention converts into real financial help, not just likes.
This is a good reminder that “support the corps” isn’t only buying merch or showing up at a show—sometimes it’s literally a vote that helps someone afford tour. I’m curious how they keep the competition fair when some corps have way larger online followings than others. Side note, the way this post lays out steps and dates feels like the kind of checklist-y structure you see on hrefgo, even though the topic is totally different. Hope you do more posts like this with concrete options for members.
I like that this acknowledges the uncomfortable reality: even with scholarships available, a lot of the burden still falls on families and personal networks. Also interesting that DCI’s scholarship pool is bigger than I expected—more folks should probably know those deadlines vary and some close fast. The whole “figure out what you’re dealing with first” idea kind of parallels a cipher type identifier tool approach—identify the situation, then pick the right next step. Hoping the members who advance get something substantial, not just a small token.
The part that sticks with me is how quickly these deadlines come up—if you miss one week, you’re basically out. It’d be cool to hear later how many members actually got meaningful help out of this, because tour fees are no joke. Weirdly, all the voting stages made me think of how you keep chasing a better “run” in BlockBlast, just with way higher stakes here. Fingers crossed for the Troopers competing.