[DirtyBird213]

Our school gives us as much support that they can. This year they paid for our bus to and from the Manchester regional for all 3 days. We consider ourselves lucky for any of the help we get! One thing we do, at the beginning of every year, we set a budget for each student with a payment plan. We do a lot of fund-raising, and all the money a student earns gets deducted from their balance. The students can either choose to fund-raise all of their money, or pay for part in cash and the rest with fund-raising, or pay in full. (surprisingly a lot of parents prefer to pay in full so they won't have to fund-raise.) We like it this way as there are no surprises, every student knows in advance how much it is going to cost them. Every student who is in our club knows that we will only be traveling to the Nationals every other year, so all of our juniors are going this year knowing it is their last year to go. When you are a small team like us, making a last minute decision to travel to the National competition is not going to happen. It's unfortunate, but we all have a great time at the regionals we attend . We also participate in a few invitationals in the off season which are very affordable and just as much fun.
I just wanted to point out something else, my husband is the teacher adviser for our team (I donate my time as an adviser) he also coaches Football and Baseball, some of you have said how much your schools give to your sports teams. It's not the same here in Keene NH! Our sports teams have boosters clubs that are responsible for raising the money those teams need. The school pays the coaches salaries. They also pay a salary for my husband for FIRST. The unfortunate thing is we are all in public schools, and it's the public who vote on our school budgets, which struggle to pass as it is. I think we need to realize that the schools just don't have any money to give. This is why fund-raising in so important. We have all proved we can excel in the FIRST program with no money!