The $180,000 it will cost the Fairley High School band to perform at the FedEx Orange Bowl might as well have been $1 billion. That works out to $1,500 for each of the band’s 115 members to make the invitation-only trip to Miami for the Jan. 2 game, an amount that might as well have been $1 million.

At a school where 95 percent of the student body receives free or reduced lunch, coming up with so much money for an extracurricular opportunity seemed like a far-away dream.

Dreams, the Fairley band has learned first hand, come true.

Read the rest of Wendi C. Thomas’s column today here. What would you like to say to the Fairley band as they get ready for their bowl adventure?