Last night was the Montclair Elementary Variety Show.

Sierra danced Te Pua Noa Noa:

Ryan played the piano and sang Photograph by Jamie Cullum:

They were awesome!

Ryan is the greatest salesman in the world. I think he has all the right elements. 1. He's cute. 2. He's cute. 3. He's cute and not afraid to ask ANYONE to buy a raffle ticket. Ryan's been all over Oakland, Berkeley and Walnut Creek. We've left San Francisco for the SF boys....but we may wander over there before this thing's done. He's got a great little table - there's music playing that the boys recorded of the Inauguration songs (unfortunately not yet available or for sale, but beautiful to listen to as you're walking by); and then printouts of photos of the chorus in DC and at the Inauguration. So even when people plan to walk by, the music or the photos catch their attention.

At the above concert venue, we got there early enough to see one of the musicians arrive. He was the cellist - Lawrence Granger - and he was awesome. He had forgotten his checkbook that night and felt so bad that all he could give Ryan was $60 cash to buy raffle tickets. Ryan was unbelievably thrilled - that was his biggest sale ever! So we got a picture of them together.

We also figured out that we have to be in a path where people have to pass by you. We tried Zellarbach on the Berkeley campus, but the space is way too wide open and people can avoid your table like the plague.

And his tally so far? 44 hours of selling. 455 people purchased tickets. 1,129 tickets sold. For a grand total of $2,005. We've guessed that for every sale he's probably said his pitch 10-20 times. So that would be somewhere between 4,000-10,000 utterings of "Excuse me, would you like to buy a raffle ticket to help the San Francisco Boys Chorus?" His goal is $3,000 and he only has until June 3. The money he raises helps pay for his trip to Eugene where they'll be participating this year in a children's choral festival called PICCFest. We talked last night about how much work it is and how we don't know if we're up for it next year. But as he said - "well, you know mom, next year I'll be in the Concert level (the highest group - he's being promoted in June) and there's even more responsibility....and they tour a lot more." Oh yeah.

He thinks he can make his goal...and I hope he can because he's worked his little heart out.