The secret ingredient behind Prom, field trips. and just about anything and everything worth showing up for at AHS? A whole lot of baking, door-knocking, and community.

Angela Torres knows this better than most. An AHS parent now in her fourth year volunteering, she currently serves as the president of both the PTSA and Orchestra Boosters, while also helping with the Band Boosters. Through the PTSA alone, Torres helps run a surprisingly wide range of initiatives that many might not know about: the PTSA feeds the entire teaching staff twice a year, offers four annual scholarships, contributes to the AHS food pantry, funds the senior All Night Grad celebration, and more. The funds of the PTSA cannot be disclosed; however, doing fundraising of their own, the pantry aims to earn $20,000.

“The methods and fundraisers vary quite a bit from organization to another, however the end goal is to provide for the students and staff at Annandale High School,” Torres said.

Planning at that scale is no small feat. Big fundraisers can require months of preparation, sometimes starting over the summer.

“There is a lot to do, but having lots of people helping really does make the lift easier,” Torres said.

Nowhere is that community effort more visible than the legendary orchestra bake sales. Held the afternoon before each concert, the entire program has become something of an institution at AHS, consistently pulling in thousands while most other clubs’ bake sales barely crack $100.

Junior Lyana Vo, Orchestra Leadership Vice President and the Bake Sale Coordinator, attributes this achievement to the variety of homemade goods all the students in the program contribute.

“We rarely ever have anything that is store bought. It can even go into different cultures and everything–we had tres-leches items for the most recent [bake sale],” Vo said.

The money raised goes straight back to the students who helped earn it, for instruments, new equipment, and trips that might otherwise be out of reach.

Vo and Torres work closely together to ensure that momentum carries through for these fundraisers. Torres handles the more logistical side of things: “She essentially [makes an] outline of the bake sale, while I fill in the details of it,” Vo said.

The entirety of the performing arts program also comes together each fall for Tag Day, where students fan out across the AHS-zoned neighborhoods, knocking on doors to ask for donations and leaving behind a tag to let residents know how they can continue supporting the program.

This kind of community buy-in, as it turns out, is everything. The culture of participation and working together doesn’t happen overnight, and not every program at AHS has had the same time to build it. For example, of the roughly 500 seniors, barely a fifth are actively involved in raising money to fund their own events, according to senior and class president Téa Akl.

“It’s not only the student government’s responsibility to handle the fundraisers, but also the students who should be coming and supporting,” Akl said.

The class has tried a number of approaches to close this gap in investment. Bake sales are a staple for their efficiency, but they have also run restaurant fundraisers, original community events like Blizzard Breakfast, and are now planning a potential parents night out where seniors babysit local children for a fee.

Currently, everything they raise is going toward one goal: Prom. From decorations and catering, to the DJ and venue, these costs can add up “to more than one would expect. Thousands,” Akl said. The school covers the deposit for the venue, but everything else is entirely on the seniors to find the funds for. Unlike Orchestra, which has years of established tradition and Parent Boosters behind it, the senior class is always building from scratch.

Torres, who has watched this kind of effort play out across multiple programs over four years, understands why raising money can be challenging at times.

“I want to be realistic about how much we can expect to raise, knowing our boundary’s socio-economic limitations,” Torres said. However, she’s seen enough to know that when people do show up and support where they can, it makes all the difference.

“I love the feeling of working together to meet a common goal and I love watching the funds being put to use and people enjoying them,” Torres said.