Ashburn, Va. » The University of Utah marching band has two communities to thank for the historic opportunity to parade down Pennsylvania Avenue on Tuesday.

People in Utah opened their wallets to raise the money needed to get the band to Washington for the inaugural parade.

And Mormons in Virginia -- many with Utah ties -- took care of just about everything else. They organized the transportation and activities and provided food and even a bed to sleep in for each of the 128 band members.

"I think it is wonderful that there is a community of people willing to open their homes to, honestly, a group of complete strangers," said band Director Brian Sproul, who said the whole experience has been one of the most humbling of his life.

The band arrived in Washington, D.C., early Sunday and after a day spent sightseeing, headed to Virginia to meet their benefactors at a neighborhood elementary school. They were met with a spread of 50 pizzas, a mountain of cookies and even a special cake designed to recognize their participation in the parade.

"It feels like home," said trumpet player Tevita Vesi, as he ate a big piece of red-and-white cake. "You don't feel like an outsider at all."

Many of the band members expect it to be a little awkward to stay with people they haven't yet met, but they also say they were overwhelmed at how the community rushed to embrace them.

"I don't know too many people who would be willing to do that," said Sarah Haftmann, a drum major with the band.

U. officials didn't get a formal invitation to participate in the parade until the first week of January, sending them into a logistical scramble.

They decided to ask the public to finance the $160,000 trip, saying in such a tough economic time they felt it would have been inappropriate to use university funds.

And the public came through. More than 1,000 individual donations came in, covering the costs of a chartered jet, three buses and an equipment van, not to mention food -- and even a side trip to the Civil War battlefield at Gettysburg.

But that money didn't pay for hotel rooms, which would have cost tens of thousands of dollars -- not that there were even hotel rooms to be had. The nearest vacancies were in either Philadelphia or Richmond Va.

That's where U. graduate Sherman Smith came in.

Out of the blue, he contacted U. officials volunteering to coordinate housing by relying on the generosity of the members of the LDS Church stake in Ashburn, Va.

Smith and the other local LDS leaders made it clear that their call for help was not a church activity, but a community project. In less than a day, more than 100 families offered their homes, way more than Smith could use. In contrast, it took Smith a month to find 30 volunteers to help clean the LDS temple.

"We probably could have housed 500 students," he said. "That is how many volunteers we had."

Guy and Susan Hicks moved to Virginia in 1978 but still consider Utah home. They are proud U. graduates who were thrilled to hear the marching band got a coveted parade slot and they saw Smith's call for help as a way to reconnect with their alma mater.

"We wanted four [students] and we only got two," said Susan Hicks. "I guess so many volunteered and they just got snapped up."

Guy Hicks said the Utah alumni "are a community within a community" in the D.C. area, even though the Ashburn stake has more BYU fans than Ute fans.

Marc Roskelley even wore his BYU sweatshirt to the stake center where he picked up a Utah student. When his wife, Terrie, first said she wanted to volunteer, the BYU graduate responded "Absolutely not" but later relented.

Terri Roskelley said she felt compelled to help because she once performed as part of an orchestra for President Lyndon Johnson in a Rose Garden concert and she wanted to make sure these students got the same historic opportunity.

But not everyone who helped had strong Utah connections. Shari Chamberlin volunteered to host a couple of band members and take care of the food for the whole group, since she has catering experience.

"Everyone just chips in and does what needs to be done," she said.

mcanham@sltrib.com