A promotional photo of the Booster Club featuring its president, Brian Wagner. Graphic and photo by Knox McCalla.

New TVs? Band uniforms? Trash cans? How does Atlantic High School get all this cool new stuff? The answer is The Atlantic Booster Club. The Booster Club is a volunteer-run club that donates over $50,000 annually to the extracurricular activities of AHS. They run concession stands for every sport, fundraise for events, and use sponsors to donate new technology for the school. However, the club has an issue: they need help. Booster Club President Brian Wagner said, “We need [volunteers] or we don’t get money to help.”

Booster Club member and band director Jarrod O’Donnell said that the Booster Club is “always in need of new volunteers,” but some students don’t know what the Booster Club is or does. Freshman Hudson Brock said, “I know they support various things around the school,” but was unaware of anything else. Students had varying ideas of how much money the Booster Club donates yearly. Brock guessed between $2,000 and $10,000, while freshman Ean Bloomfield said, “I don’t exactly know.” It seems that the Booster Club is a complete mystery to the students despite how important it is to the school.

If nobody volunteers for the Booster Club, how are they supposed to fundraise enough for the school? The Booster Club gets around $30,000 annually from sponsors, but runs concession stands to “close the gap,” said Wagner. Only half of their revenue comes from sponsorships and they won’t be able to pay for as many extracurricular activities if there aren’t enough volunteers. Junior Margaret McCurdy said she “tries to volunteer at least twice a month,” as she knows they’re short on help. Brock said, “If nobody really steps up, then [the Booster Club] wouldn’t happen”

Wagner said, “The concessions are the bridge between what we get and what we give out.” That’s why you should volunteer with the Booster Club. The more you volunteer, the more the Booster Club can fundraise for extracurriculars, and the more people who volunteer, the easier the job gets. 

“We’re not just there for the football team. We’re not just there for the basketball team. We can help with FFA, journalism, speech and debate, I mean, we’ve done it all. It’s nice to be involved in quite literally everything. And at the same time, it’s also nice to have help from everyone because you can meet literally everyone. I’ve been in so many stands over the last four years and I’ve met a fantastic group of kids along the way and it’s really fun,” said Brian Wagner, Booster Club President.