Transcript
Speaker: Hey, this is Nicole here from On A Water Break. I'm gonna be talking today to Tom Maiello. It's the founder of the 1934 Foundation here. Tom, help me. Eight off the Met and go. Welcome to On A Water Break. The podcast where we talk everything marching arts. Everyone's bringing it. It's time for a water break.
Speaker: I am here just one co -founder myself and good friend Eric Saboch. Oh Eric Saboch. Okay. Yes. He does vinyls. He does flags. Yes. Digital Marching FX. Digital Marching FX. Yes. I do know Eric Saboch. Good friend of mine.
Speaker: All right. So we're done with the winter guard season of things. We're on to drum Corps, which is another reason why we have you on. But before we get into all of that, we have a thing that we do here at on a water break called the 32 count life story. This is what you do. We'll give you 32 counts. You'll have eight counts on the met and then you're in. You know what I'm saying? Just like how we used to do on the field during ensemble, you know? All right. So no pressure, but it's going to happen now.
Speaker: I started the activity in 1982 in the Bridgman's feeder core, the Brown Cadets. I marched in the Garfield Cadets. I ran the Raiders for probably 20 years or so. Ran Cadets too. I was on the cadet board for some time. And now we're starting a new venture between the 34 foundation and also Dream Performing Arts, which is a separate organization. All right. We got you there.
Speaker: That's awesome. All right, a lot of people usually yeah a lot of people will usually crumble under the pressure of trying to put so much information into 32 counts You my friend did very well And this is trash and this is trash I could speak very highly of the dream performing arts foundation they are the umbrella organization of my independent guard and V winner guard and They've been doing amazing work for them, too
Speaker: Awesome. That's something I didn't even know about, Trish. That's good that you brought that up. All right. Well, so Tom, that was awesome. Just want to let you know. So we're just going to calm this down a bit. One of the biggest reasons why we brought you in, and especially to me, I think that this is very relevant to what's happening right now. Like everyone's getting their moving list done. They're getting moved in. They've already signed their contracts.
Speaker: And now they have the speed of pay. There aren't a lot of foundations out there that can help because these fees are out of the astronomical. They're crazy. I can remember struggling to pay mine. Do you remember doing that? Yeah, but it was a little 100 years ago. So it was only about $700. See? OK. So $700. And when I marched, it was $2 ,300.
Speaker: So, and I'm a long time out. Don't let this fool you. Okay. But then, you know, we get into now and it's like, I don't know. It feels like you have to take out a small life mortgage, like a small loan. But seriously, I really would like for you to dive into and tell us about the 1934 foundation. Well, it is brand new. Eric, his original idea was how do we help kids who are marching in the cadets?
Speaker: while he and I were on the, we had just come off the board. How are we going to help? And simple, okay, we'll raise money and put money towards their dues. So that alumni could feel that if they donated 10 bucks or a hundred bucks or a thousand bucks, it was going right to the kid. Not, you know, paying for insurance or food or buses or whatever.
Speaker: it was going to help that kid pay his or her dues. With everything that was going on with the cadets leading to them unfortunately folding, it kept getting put off until about a week before they did fold. Then they saw the value in it, we had another call. But then unfortunately, the world kind of blew up on them that Friday the 13th. Oh, yeah. That day. And so we took a step back
Speaker: and said, well, why can't we use the foundation to preserve the legacy of the cadets and still give out scholarships? Can we focus on kids that were in cadets going somewhere else? Or, you know, any kid, phantom, graders, a serf, or whatever. Yeah, we had to change the requirements of the scholarship itself. It would also then preserve the legacy because my thought
Speaker: was maybe in 10, 15 years, if we do this right, a kid that never saw the cadets on the field might get $1 ,000 check from the 34 foundation. And that's how you preserve the legacy of something. He or she never saw them on the field, but just got $1 ,000 from their alumni, whatever the dues might be at that time. So what are the requirements for those performers who would like to get a scholarship from the 1934 foundation?
Speaker: Well, we haven't finalized all the scholarship requirements yet because we just really started about a month ago, honestly. The first board meeting is I think in two weeks. And to put the board together, finalize the bylaws, finalize the scholarship parameters, start doing some fundraisers. So we don't plan on giving out any money until obviously next year.
Speaker: Okay, I was just about to ask is this current or for The bank right now just to get the bank account open. Okay and get the insurance set up and The website I think you've seen it You know that has just gone up But we haven't finalized the board yet. We have our 501c3 that that's final now it's put a board together finalized the bylaws and
Speaker: and obviously all the different employment practice procedures and start raising a few dollars. How important do you feel like this foundation is to the drum core activity right now? Well, I mean, I guess in the scope of things right now, it's not very significant, but we hope within one, two, five years that we can give out as many scholarships as possible. The original goal was to get to 300 ,000 and maybe just live off the interest.
Speaker: and pay out on the interest. We have a financial planner who's going to help us with some of that part, maybe investing some of the money. But now with the demise of the cadets, it's also about preserving the legacy. When you look at the website, it doesn't mention the cadets because we can't, because we don't feel like getting any letters from attorneys since the cadets filed for chapter seven. There's the vibe in there, though. You do see that and feel that.
Speaker: Well, that was done on purpose. I mean, and I was looking and it's funny because when I was looking through the website, I was like, Hmm, you know, this, it felt, you know, like that. And then I was like, Oh, okay. And that's why I wanted to ask as well, because the foundation is basically you said, well, excuse me, the website says it's made up of alumni, staff and friends. Is this mainly just from cadets or is it from other,
Speaker: drumcores as well. Yeah, we put out feelers on all the cadets, Facebook groups. And we've had about three meetings so far. We range between 25 to 50 people on a zoom call. And all either March taught, or just fans of the cats. And they all they want to do something. And, you know, we have two attorneys who once the cadets shut down, we said, How are we going to do this? You know, one is a litigation attorney for type of claims that
Speaker: or the part of the demise of the cadets. And the other one's a trademark and patent attorney, you know, help get out of trouble in that neighborhood. That's why you don't see the G, the C, the,
Speaker: the chevrons, all that stuff. You don't see any of that. Okay. Do you just cover in all your bases there? But I feel like this is going to be the launch pad of a lot of more foundations coming forward because of the need. The need is completely there right now. I have other friends of mine who will go through and has made spreadsheets that have all of the information on each drum core and how much it actually costs. Oh look, do we have a little guest star?
Speaker: Yeah, when I tell him I have a meeting, it's tough for him to stay out of the room. Oh, he's horrible. I taught you. But to, you know, talk about that.
Speaker: In the years that have come, and I know we just touched on this a little bit at the beginning, but the way that drum core has definitely become extremely expensive and almost unobtainable, where it used to be very attainable. There is, obviously, you can't just go for $100 or $700, like you said.
Speaker: Definitely needs more and there's a lot of kids that are marching a lot of young performers out there who you know That's not like a readily available thing. Have you heard of kids like, you know Sacrificing some other things to actually marched so they can pay their dues. Oh sure I mean I ran I helped with the start of the Raiders in 1990. I became director in 2003
Speaker: And I stepped down in 2016, you know, all those years helping kids who, you know, maybe their families couldn't, you know, whatever the number was at that point, it was tough for some kids. And then, you know, my one year would see two Jews that year were $1 ,600. And that was tough for some kids. I mean, one kid I remember them saying was living in a hotel with his family because they were homeless. You know, how do you, how do you pressure that kid into pay, you know, when real life problems facing
Speaker: facing their family. And then like a year and a half on the kids board, you had kids that trouble paying that fee, whatever it happened to be that year, 4 ,000, 5 ,000. Where's the solution? That's another long conversation. No, no. Yeah. I mean, honestly, that's, I feel like when we do talk about like the price of things, like if you really go in there and like,
Speaker: You know, look at a budget sheet, like every line needs to be paid for. So I, I get it. I just hate that it costs that much. You know, I think we all do. Right. This model of the drum core of a drum core does, um, it just doesn't. And we're spending money we don't have, we don't generate the kind of revenue to support the touring, the staff salaries. And before anybody gets angry, I'm not saying.
Speaker: those guys and girls don't deserve the money, bless them they do, but so do the administrators and the volunteers to help care, feed and drive trucks. Everybody deserves money, but it's just not there.
Speaker: Hey everyone, it's Jeremy, and here are your announcements coming from the box. You wanna drink up on a water break lost in translation with Cynthia Bernard, uncover the glitz and glamour of twirlers with on a water break in rhinestones hosted by Lexi Duda, get the insider scoop from the stands with on a water break from the stands with Cindy Berry, aka Leander Mama, and join the band Family in on a water break family style with Stephanie Click, plus much, much more to come.
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Speaker: There are more, like I said before, there's, there should be more foundations like the 1934, um, how, well, at least your, your dream of it, how it should be. I feel like there are the more that I dig, I can actually find more, but that's the thing like to dig. Like if, I mean, I know that you're still in the planning stages, but how
Speaker: Will you be making or how do you want to make this like readily available to students who and performers who are going to be like marching when it's actually done? Yeah. I mean, once we'll start marketing the website, I'm, I'm almost positive DCI used to do it. They give out information to the core, to the core is about foundation and scholarships that are out there. So, you know, we want to obviously get on that list. We started planning some fundraisers.
Speaker: Uh, some will be up by me here in North Jersey. Some, some could be down in Texas where Eric's from, uh, trying to reach out to other alumni to run, you know, wine tasting things that the average person that are not drunk or related, but, you know, Joe Smith will go to it because he likes wine. He'll drop a hundred bucks to go to a wine tasting. And, you know, the money's going to go into our foundation.
Speaker: No one's being compensated. Really only expenses of the foundation are going to be insurance and the website. Everything else is volunteer. That's good. Oh, great. I really can't wait for this to come up because I feel like every year, you know what I mean? I feel like there's more. There's always more performers. There's always more kids.
Speaker: And then from those kids come parents who are like, how am I going to pay for this? And so on and so forth. I personally don't feel as if I, I mean, I know it happens, but I feel like I wouldn't want to turn away a performer because I couldn't pay. Yeah, a hundred percent. That was always our philosophy with the Raiders. As Tricia mentioned about a year ago, we started a dream performing arts and, um,
Speaker: And Erica's an advisor on that board. We started with Envy. Trish, Trish and her group needed a home. Uh, so it was a great timing for it. So we set up everything for Envy. Trish runs with her program and I was with them in Wilder this past weekend. The kids love her. Um, we're hoping to grow that program. Uh, we're also in a month, an indoor performing wins program for WGI, uh, an indoor percussion program for WGI.
Speaker: And for 2026, 27, a DCI open classroom. Okay. Trying to do two things at one time here for some of us, because there are people on both boards, figure out a way to help the kids, but also create more programs for the kids. Right. So they'll be like sister organizations. And hopefully in two or three years, we'll look back and you know,
Speaker: Say, hey, we pulled it off. There's kids marching. There's money coming in. We've got performing groups. Yeah. You've gone all over the place. Can you tell me a little bit more about how that foundation helped Envy? What was the support like? Well, how Dream helped Envy is Tricia and I have been friends for years. I saw on Facebook she was looking for help in getting the nonprofit status and all that stuff together. Put Envy out on the floor.
Speaker: And so I messaged her and said, um, Hey, this is what we're doing. I have what you need. You have what I need. I was just going to say, that's exactly what you said to me. We already had the 501c3 status, but we didn't have a program. We were still in the planning stages. So right away I'm in the insurance business. I got insurance for the organization.
Speaker: And I think like a week later was their first rehearsal. Nice, just in time. Just it kind of is one of the things sometimes you're in the right place at the right time, on to place and, you know, talk about budget talk, you know, Trish, I'm going to break the fourth wall a little bit and talk to you about this. How was it to have that kind of support with
Speaker: Envy from Drew. Oh my gosh. I can't even begin to tell you like, so Envy happened because at the 2022, um, championships for our high school team, Northern Valley, you know, I had a bunch of alums with us that day, some, some of which had their 2020 season cut short.
Speaker: And now we are at the first live championship since 2019. And so I'm running around doing stuff. Kids came off the floor, you know, whatever. And I would make my way up to wipe by where the concession stands are. And a bunch of my alums come up to me and they go, we're going to have an alumni guard next year. And I said, why? And they said, yeah. And they said, oh.
Speaker: I said, who's going to direct it? And they all pointed to me. And I said, who's going to pitch it? And they all pointed to me. And I said, well, when the question comes, who's going to pay for this? Don't point at me.
Speaker: So it kind of was like a silly thing. I was like, it's really going to happen. Can we really do this? And as we started, we took that whole summer, we molded around. I had the girl that was the captain at Envy this weekend, she and her sister wanted to do something together one more time. So she works with me at my high school team. She was kind of the driving force behind it. And I was like, you know what? Can we do this?
Speaker: So me being a Catholic school teacher, I reached out to a Catholic school that I previously worked at that closed, had an in, got a sweetheart deal on rehearsal space.
Speaker: I was like, all right, well, then that could work. And it's hard to come by. It really is. And then when it came to the nuts and bolts of it, that's where Tommy just reached out to me and said exactly what he just said to you. He goes, you have what we need. We need programs. But we have what you need. We have the 503 -1C. We have the insurance. And Tommy and I, like Tommy said earlier, we'd known each other for years. We'd always wanted to work together. We never had the opportunity. So it was a marriage made in heaven, to be honest with you. And here we are on Sunday. We completed year two.
Speaker: Yeah. I had another girl come to me a week ago. She wants to start a winter garden. And I said, well, let's get together, talk about a budget. So the idea is that dream is the overseeing administrator. The program's run independently, uh, you know, under the right parameters with the childcare and safety budgeting. Uh, they're self -funded. We're trying to develop businesses for dreams. So just in case a program runs a little short at the end, all right, take it from here, pay it back.
Speaker: you know, next year or whatever the situation might be. So we're working on developing all that. Great. I just think that's great. Now, do you think that the days of, because I know one of the ways that I raised money for my tour fees was to, you know, write a letter and I mailed it off. I mailed it to anybody, like first grade teacher.
Speaker: band director, aunts, uncles, nana, you know, because that little $5 all the way up to, you know, if somebody was going to give you $100, it all really mattered because it's all going to go into the same place.
Speaker: And basically the whole, like some people would, back in the day when you're trying to raise money, if you were a Girl Scout, you knocked on doors. So basically I called this the knock on doors type way of doing it. Do you think those days are gone and we would have to solely depend on programs to help these performers march? You know, I think it's going to have to be a little bit of everything. Those, those ideas that you're talking about, we used to call them the Marchathons, the Spinathons. Oh, absolutely. Yup.
Speaker: You know, now, now with the internet, I guess they could reach more people, you know, with a fund me cadets had their own program that the kids could post on whatever social media platform and that people generate money. You know, it's, I guess it's going to be up to each organization is going to have to make sure they're helping their kids so that they don't carry anybody away. And we don't alienate a lower middle class or, or lower income families for one. But unfortunately, I think.
Speaker: I mean, yeah, unfortunately it's happening, you know? Yeah. And I mean, I know that a lot of people will try their hardest and it's just like, okay, some, if not more of these kids, and this could fall into a completely other different podcast recording, but like need some adult or somebody, an authority figure to help advocate for them so that they can do.
Speaker: It's where the whole model of the activity I think needs to be looked at. I've thought it for years, but we keep trying to do more with less and it doesn't work. Like not the NFL was not an endless supply of money company. That's why I think that you are doing such good. Like this idea and I'm, I really can't wait to see it come to fruition because this idea is something that I think, you know, other people can look into as well.
Speaker: We had a bunch of good people that don't, you know, I appreciate your kind words, but there's a lot of good people helping me. And for us, it was for many of them with the 34 Foundation and with Dream, it was just people that we enjoyed working with. And we said, you know what, this is our last hurrah, our legacy of what we can do in this activity. We're all, you know, getting up there. We're not 21 anymore. And
Speaker: you know, what can we create that maybe will outlast us in the activity. Gotta leave a legacy. Gotta leave a legacy. Along with your, along with the 1934 foundation, there's also another foundation that I've found called Grace Note and also Our Marching Counts.
Speaker: So, there's a lot of drum -specific, you know, drum -core -specific scholarship programs that are out there. So, I'm hoping that it would just be like kind of ripe for the picking for everyone to get into. Yeah, I mean, I hope so. Like I said, we've talked about the wine tasting. We have some contact with NFL players, retired NFL players. Maybe we could do some autograph signings. I would go to that.
Speaker: That's not gonna work to generate the revenue you need We're trying to start businesses to help support both both organizations and put more money in the pot You know, the only paycheck is how well the kids do that's the paycheck
Speaker: That is it. That is it. There is nothing better than seeing your kids out there performing their hearts out and coming off the field crying because they did so well. That's what I live for. I love those moments. Make me cry. Make me cry. So Tom, can you tell us where folks can find you, where the folks can find the 1934 Foundation? Do you have any socials? The website is up. The website is up, 1934foundation .org.
Speaker: I think the social media pages those will be up in another couple days. Like I said, it's all really brand new We did like a soft release of the website on some of the cadet pages got some feedback from some people And other than that dream is right in the process now of redoing our website. That's dream to perform org For that
Speaker: And, you know, everything's still kind of young and hopefully. And we caught you in your infancy. So I'm glad that we were able to, you know, speak to you about like the need and also like what the reason why behind it. And I think it's a fantastic reason. So, and all right. Well, I want to thank you so much for joining us and just, you know, appeasing me with your time and our listeners as well.
Speaker: Hopefully we'll talk again.
