Community Comes Together to Support MICMS

Last Saturday evening the community came together in typical Marco Island fashion to help raise precious dollars for the children attending Marco Island Charter Middle School (MICMS). 

MICMS’s Boots & Blues event is one of the school’s largest fundraisers and helps to support activities that are not funded by the Collier County School Board.

At Boots & Blues, attendees took advantage of the red carpet that was rolled out in their honor by the JW Marriott. The annual dinner dance and silent auction featured the Ben Allen Band as the headliner this year. 

Florida’s charter schools are required to raise approximately 10% of their operating budgets. Unlike other schools throughout Collier County, the Marco Island Charter Middle School and the Marco Island Academy receive little if any funding for extracurricular activities and must apply fees or create fundraisers for the children who wish to participate in those activities. This applies to sports, band or any of the other popular afterschool activities that make up the “total educational experience” that every parent desires for their children.

Further, MICMS does not receive any funding for meeting the nutritional needs of students whose parents can’t afford to purchase them healthy meals. “Believe it or not there are approximately 40% of our students who we fund for those meals,” said Allyson Richards, a member of the MICMS Board of Directors.

Maintenance of the building is another requirement for local parents, and they have worked diligently to ensure the more than two-decades-old structure is well cared for and is in pristine condition.

Attendees used their pre-event time to bid on the ever-popular silent auction items, which were all donated by local merchants. There was a wide variety of items to bid on, totaling over 140 offerings.

Once seated in the main dining area, MICMS Principal Michelle Wheeler welcomed the guests. She thanked the 254 attendees, as well as those who donated to the event and volunteered to help make it such a continued success.

During dinner, guests were entertained by no less than Ben Allen himself, who provided solo renditions of many popular songs. At the conclusion of dinner, there was time to make one last sweep into the silent auction area before Ashley Lupo was introduced. Ashley Lupo is the wife of MICMS Board Chairman David Lupo, who was unable to attend the evening’s festivities. 

Before beginning the auction portion of the event, Mrs. Lupo gave special recognition to Deborah Hobbs, who helped coordinate the event, and provided numerous auction items with her team of volunteers. 

Special parking spaces in the school parking lot were auctioned off to a number of willing bidders, in addition to many other live auction items.

Boots & Blues organizers were extremely pleased with the turnout and results. Their fundraising efforts will help support the school’s ongoing expenses, in addition to the unfunded mandates that are not reimbursed by either the state or county.

“We are so grateful to all those that donated items for the auction, those that helped us pull this whole event together and especially to those who came forward and attended the evening’s activities,” said Mrs. Lupo.

Once the auction ended, the popular Ben Allen Band took the stage and attendees danced and enjoyed themselves. No one missed a beat, and the party was on for the remainder of the evening.

For more than two decades, the Marco Island Charter Middle School has been consistently ranked as a “High Performing School” in the State of Florida.

Residents and businesses that would like to explore sponsorship and donation opportunities in support of MICMS should contact Maria Hayden at haydenma@collierschools.com for more information.