Why a longtime local business is teaming up with the South Carolina marching band
South Carolina football games are nothing new for Stacy Levinson.
She’s attended them since she was a girl growing up in Columbia. She went to plenty more during her undergraduate years, finishing at USC in 1985. Ahead of South Carolina’s upset of No. 5 Tennessee in November, Levinson was in a Cock-a-boose for a pregame tailgate with a handful of friends when one asked if she’d be interested supporting the Carolina marching band with a $25 donation.
Levinson did one better.
The owner of Brittons of Columbia, Levinson and husband Perry Lancaster teamed up with the Carolina Band to set up a fundraiser this week ahead of the annual Garnet & Black Spring Game to help support the band.
“If you didn’t get into (the game) because of the lights and the music and the band and the whole production of that game, you might as well just get buried six feet under. It made you jump up and down” Levinson quipped of the excitement the band helped foster at the win over Tennessee. “And no matter the score, the band’s a winner. Because no matter the game — if we win or lose and play a terrible game — the band is like almost like 50% the experience. And we (as a store) we are about the experience.”
The Carolina Band is a staple at any football game in the fall. It performs at halftime and in the stands throughout contests, providing the soundtrack for so many Saturdays involving head coach Shane Beamer’s football team.
The band does function slightly differently in that it’s funded through a combined effort with the school of music and athletics. That’s an expensive proposition. Audra Vaz, the assistant dean for advancement/senior director of development for the school of music, estimates that a single tuba can cost in the neighborhood of $19,000.
Which is why the group works with businesses like Brittons to raise money for various costs associated with operating the band — including instruments, travel to competitions and scholarships.
“It’s really just one of those six degrees of separation that sort of led this whole thing. That was the impetus for it,” Vaz said. “But (Levinson and Lancaster) are great advocates for the university.”
Like football, the band program recruits. There are five-star talents on the trombone just as there are on Beamer’s roster. Money like that raised this weekend during the fundraiser at Brittons — which is donating a portion of sales to the Carolina Band — helps to attract that talent through scholarships.
Jay Jacobs, the director of athletic bands, noted there’s a long-term hope that the program will be able to make improvements to the Copenhaver Band Hall. The facility works plenty well as is, Johnson said, but there are a few tweaks and upgrades the band hopes to add.
“Much like the (Long Family Football Operations Center) and other athletic facilities are branded, we have a fantastic facility,” Jacobs explained. “Our band hall is amazing functionally, but to have it visually represent everything that the students bring is a kind of an interior and exterior graphic design branding process that we’re undertaking.”
Levinson, whose family has owned Brittons for nearly a century, has long been active in the community. This week’s event will include hosting members of the band at the store ahead of the spring game on Saturday for a party of sorts. Those wanting to donate and participate can see the faces behind the cause.
Donations can be made on a sliding scale and include various gifts or discounts in the store depending on the level of giving. Brittons is also planning to match all donations up to $5,000 leading into Saturday night’s Garnet & Black Spring Game at Williams-Brice Stadium.
“For us to be able to tangibly demonstrate the support that is out there for those students and what they do, really is an important factor,” Jacobs said. “We tell them all the time how much they’re loved, and how much of an impact they have on the community and the university around the world.
“But for them to see folks in the community reach out and give back to them and allow us to enhance what they do and what they experience in their time — in combination with the hours and sweat in the summer — I think it’s just it goes such a long way in both our recruiting for future generations of the band and also retention.”
This story was originally published April 14, 2023 at 8:58 AM.
