Whitefish students play it forward with guitar raffle

Two Whitefish High School seniors, Lauren Rossi and Bailey Kallal, have teamed up for a DECA project to raise funds for North Valley Music School.  

They have organized a raffle for a brand-new Seagull S6 acoustic guitar, with all proceeds going back to the school. There will also be second and third place drawings for harmonicas. 

“We just saw how much the music school has been doing in the community and we wanted to raise money,” Rossi said. “It’s hard to just ask for money, so we wanted to think of a fun way that could also include a wide variety of demographics.” 

Both Rossi and Kallal have had connections to the music school since they were young children.  

Rossi took about six years of violin lessons at North Valley Music School when she was younger, and her mom has been involved in helping organize the building of a new music school, which broke ground this summer near the Smith Fields sports complex. 

Duvall said the school is also special to her mom, ever since taking mommy-and-me style classes years ago, which formed lasting friendships.  

“They all still talk about music, and she enjoys the music community,” Duvall said.   

DECA is a nonprofit organization that prepares high school and college students for marketing, finance, hospitality and management careers.  

DECA students compete in about 40 different events that help students develop skills relevant to business and entrepreneurship.  

“I got started in DECA freshman year, and I’ve gone to state and qualified for nationals all three years,” Rossi said.  

Duvall got started as a sophomore and has qualified for nationals as well.  

Rossi said she especially enjoys community building projects.  

“My favorite DECA project so far was a similar one I did freshman year. It was focused on mental health awareness in the school, and we took data on how students were feeling,” Rossi said.  

Duvall said one of her favorite aspects of DECA is competing in role-play events.  

“You sit down with a prompt and have ten minutes to prepare. I’ve done food related events for those because I'm interested in hospitality,” Duvall said.  

The guitar raffle is a part of the event called Community Giving Project and entails raising money for any cause or charity. 

“This is one of the less popular events to choose from in DECA because it’s more involved,” Rossi said. “There's a lot of management and planning. But it’s nice that there’s an event that’s gratifying and you can make a change.” 

The students reached out to Deidre Corson, executive director of North Valley Music School, to make it happen.  

“They had recently had guitars donated to the school, and she offered up one of the guitars for the raffle,” Rossi said. 

They found an online platform that doesn’t charge credit card fees, allowing the raffle tickets to be an affordable $5 and for all of the proceeds to truly go to the school.  

The project will be due in early January, and they’ll have to compile a 20-page written proposal on it.  

In February at state, they will present on the project. If they place high enough, they’ll qualify for nationals later in the spring.  

The all-digital raffle started Dec. 2. and ends Dec. 20. Raffle tickets can be purchased at zeffy.com/ticketing/north-valley-music-school-guitar-raffle.