NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (WAVY) — Some Newport News students will get to spend their new year in Italy, as the Heritage High School marching band will be performing in Rome’s New Year’s Day parade.

The band was invited in November 2023 to perform in the parade, and their band director hopes the students come back with more than just memories.

Reality has officially set in.

“We were like, wait a minute, I think we’re close to 30 days away,” said Heritage High marching band director Jemere Brown. “And it was like, the minute they said that, everything kicked in for all of us.”

They’re moving at warp speed now to pack up instruments and finalize plans. Rome’s New Year’s Day parade brings together bands from all over the world, and the Heritage High band will perform for 250,000 people.

Brown is proud to represent this style of marching band “because it’s important to be able to be an ambassador for the culture and the style of marching band in which we do.

“When they reached out to me, the first thing I said to him, I said, ‘Hey, you understand we do a different style of marching band?’ He said, ‘That’s why we want you to come. We’ve never seen anything like this here, so we want you all to come over and be kind of like the introduction to it.'”

Students have worked hard to get to this point, raising $325,000 for the trip. They’ll spend a week in Italy and will have time to sightsee in between performances. They’ll have one performance on New Year’s Eve outside of Rome in the city of Frascati, and then the parade performance Jan. 1.

They’ll get to visit the Vatican, Pompeii and the Coliseum. Brown visited this summer to make plans and can only guess how his students will react.

“Honestly, I’m expecting some of them to cry, because I did when I got there,” he said. “I’m not even an emotional person. And, it didn’t even feel real.”

And he hopes the entire experience speaks to them.

“It’s just being a good human being and just having compassion for others, and also just that you can achieve anything if you try your hardest,” he said.

There will be a big sendoff for the students at noon, Dec. 28 outside the front of the school. The parade will be streamed live and you can watch it on New Year’s Day on its website, https://www.romenewyearsparade.com/.