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FAIRFIELD – Fairfield High School’s band and choir members donned their favorite festive sweaters and entertained the audience inside Fairfield Middle School’s cafetorium during Chocolate Sunday on Dec. 8.

The event raises money for the FHS Music Department, and is split evenly between band and choir. For a free-will donation, patrons can dine on a smorgasbord of sweet treats donated by parents and community members. They can also place a bid on one of the 40 goodie baskets courtesy of local businesses. While they eat, they can listen to the finest Christmas music around from the FHS band and choir.

Lisa Trent, president of Fairfield Band Aides, said she was pleased with the turnout for Chocolate Sunday, though she won’t know how much money it raised until this weekend.

“I went into a bunch of different business this year that had not been contacted before, and invited them to come,” she said. “I did see them here, and we had community members come who had never come before.”

Trent said she visited about 30 businesses to ask for donations for the silent auction baskets. Band director Tyler Nunziato and choir director Zach Reiter also solicit donations from businesses, and in the past they’ve gotten their students to make phone calls, too.

Nunziato said the event was a great success, and that the crowd nearly filled the FMS commons.

“The students also had a blast at the event, from performing on stage, to eating delicious treats, and spending time watching the other performances with their friends and families,” Nunziato said. “One of my personal favorite parts of Chocolate Sunday is the environment of the event, which is both more relaxed than a regular concert, but with the same energy and excitement from both the students and those that were watching!”

Trent gives ideas to participating businesses about what they can put in their basket, such as giving it a theme.

“Some business owners got gift cards from other businesses to put in their own basket, because this community loves each other,” Trent said.

The Band Aids used to have an admission fee for this event, but Trent said they stopped doing that after the pandemic.

“We decided that, with how the economy was, we would make it a free-will donation,” Trent said. “We leave a drum out there, which we use for our chili fundraiser in October at the football game.”

Money raised during Chocolate Sunday and other Band Aids’ fundraisers has gone toward purchasing risers and gowns for the choir, and toward instruments for young band members.

“If a parent doesn’t have the finances to rent one, or find one in the community, we have Band Aid instruments for them,” Trent said. “That Band Aid instrument stays with that child, and when they graduate, it goes back down to the middle school where it starts all over.”

Money from the fundraiser will also go to defraying the cost for band and choir members to travel to Orlando in March.

Trent asked Nicole and Joe Garretson to be in charge of the cookie platters since they did such a good job last year. Nicole said 21 people signed up to bring a dozen cookies, and there were 20 pans of brownies, too. New this year was a table set aside for gluten-free cookies.

Chocolate Sunday has been a Fairfield tradition since 1990.