At any given moment, 10 percent of the population is looking for a new mattress. Tapping into that fact, dozens of people stopped by Dartmouth High School on November 17 to shop for a cause.

It was part of Dartmouth School Music Association’s second annual mattress sale fundraiser. Owing to tremendous success last year with nearly $6,000 raised, the association again brought back a fundraising company to set up shop in the Dartmouth High cafeteria.

“It’s a really great fundraiser for us because a lot of the fundraising we do relies on our volunteers, but not this one,” said Tim Enos, the Assocation’s ways and means chair.

Instead, Custom Fundraising Solutions comes in and handles all of the logistics, staffing, and sales. The Association only handles marketing and publicity.

Throughout the day, shoppers, both band fans and the public, toured the cafeteria, tried beds on for size, and some made on-the-spot purchases. By mid-afternoon, Enos said the fundraiser was already successful with dozens of mattresses sold.

The Association needs to raise between $60,000 and $75,000 each year to support Dartmouth High’s powerhouse band and color guard program. The band has most recently taken first place in the USBands National Championships three years running, and winter guard season is fast approaching. As shoppers browsed mattresses, the band and color guard’s three most recent trophies towered overhead.

“Without this fundraising the Dartmouth School Music Association would not be as competitive and as well-known as it is,” Enos said.