By Naomi Nguyen
Over the past week, the Concert Choir and the Troubadours have been selling their annual Valentine’s Day grams to students for $3. By purchasing a gram, a student is buying a card, a flower, and a song sung by a group of choir members on Valentine’s Day for whomever they decide to send the gram to.
The grams are a festive way to raise money for choir tours and festivals, which can normally can cost around $400 to $3000.
They have a system of handing out the grams to concert choir members to keep track of how many are sold. Each member receives 5 grams at the beginning and must bring the $15 earned from the sold grams back in order to get another 5 grams. Any grams that aren’t sold must be given back to choir board.
But with over 1000 grams sold this year, there has to be a lot of organizing in order to keep the gram deliveries organized and to prevent any confusion regarding the grams to occur. This is why choir board organizes grams into similar classes and separates them on what gender is being sung to.
Many students around campus enjoy the grams, including Carolyn Nguyen (’15) who says, “Valentine grams are a great way for couples to give each last minute gifts or to embarrass your friends. It’s so embarrassing when they serenade you though!”
“I love Valentine gram season; it’s a great time for all the couples because the grams are a sweet little gesture. Personally I love the grams because they’re awkward and adorable,” said Sharon Tran (’15). “The choir kids do a great job of entertaining everyone too,”
Even though the majority of students on campus are in the audience, where they can sit back and miss a few minutes of class to enjoy their classmates being embarrassed and to listen to music sung by fellow students, those that are in choir also have fun.
Choir member Emerald Nguyen (’15) said, “At first I was really nervous because everyone has such high expectations because of movies like Pitch Perfect, but now it’s really fun and exciting to sing to other people,”
