Uhm… fundraising rant?

Okay, the music department at the high school which serves this area (which is now headed up by one of my former band directors) has started a new fundraiser. Apparently, for $30 a year, they’ll put an American flag in your yard for all of the standard patriotic holidays, like Memorial Day, Independence Day, Veterans’ Day, Presidents’ Day, and Patriot Day. (I’m guessing the latter is the new name for September 11th. I must have missed that memo.) That’s nice and dandy. I have no problem with that.

However, they decided that the best way to get the word out about their fundraiser would be to put a flag in everyone’s front yard Saturday morning, along with an envelope and a flyer explaining the fundraiser and saying they’d pick the flags up on September 13th. Now, if these were understated hand-held flags like this one realtor puts in yards every July 4th, I’d have no problem. These, however, are full-size flags on 10-foot-tall poles. I for one didn’t exactly like the idea of someone putting this thing in our lawn without our permission.

Dad ended up moving it elsewhere. If they gripe, well… that’s their tough shit. We didn’t have permission to move it? You didn’t have permission to put it on our property in the first place.

Oh, well… obviously we’re not taking part in this fundraiser. If the flags had been half the size they were or had asked our permission first, maybe we would have. Hopefully they realize this wasn’t the best way to go about this and don’t do it again… *shrug*