Dan Balash here, and I come to you for a good cause:  Chase Community Giving.

For those of you that do not know what Chase Community Giving is, Chase Bank has teamed up with Facebook to donate $5 million to deserving charities.  Last time, 100 charities received $25,000 each.  5 charities then received $100,000, and the charity with the most votes received $1,000,000.

A number of band booster organizations in Illinois are participating this time around.

Here’s a list of who is particpating.  The following are listed under “band parents”:

Morton

Prospect

Glenbrook North

Galesburg

Freeburg

Joliet Township

Belleville West

Belleville East

Rockdale Grade School

Stevenson (Lincolnshire)

Lisle Band Parents (SD 202)

Conant (Hoffman Estates)

Lemont

Granite City

The following are listed under “band boosters:”

Geneseo

Plainfield Central

Metamora

I V C

Warren

Apologies if we have left anyone off.

Here is what we would like you to do:

1.) Visit the Chase Community Giving site at http://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving/ and “like” the page.

2) Vote for each of the groups listed above by searching for each group and adding “band parents” or “band boosters” at the end.

3) Share with all of your friends, so one (or more) of these programs can get some money.

As of this writing at 7:15 CST on July 10, the 200th place charity has 1,117 votes.  ILmarching has a little over 2,200 users, so we could definitely make a dent in the proceedings.

Here’s the bad part:  Voting closes at 11:59 P.M. Monday.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Dan Balash

Owner, Illinois Marching Online

balash@ilmarching.com