School Photos on my Website?

As part of a fundraiser, I volunteered to take photos at the local school concerts and sell the images with all proceeds going to the school music program. I would like to use the shots in my online portfolio. Does anyone know if I can do that without consent from the parents, since I'm not selling the images? If I do need consent, how would I go about getting it from hundreds of parents? Thanks in advance!

The school may already have had parents agree to their kids photos being taken for school activities. Ask the school if that is the case and what they agreed to. Without that, you are going to have issues even shooting the event and putting the photos up for sale.

I can't speak for your State or US laws, but in Canada, the use of photos taken at a public event where there is no expectation of privacy can be used for non-commercial purposes (including portfolio) without a release.

The issue is that some parent don't want photos of their kids used ever due to privacy concerns, and will raise a big stink if you use them. Of course you can just use them, and if someone asks you to take down a particular photos, just remove it.

While you could try having the school send out a note on your behalf, the reality is you will never know who is who anyway, and if Parent A said no to you using photos of their child, you would never be able to find that kid in your photos anyway.

Personally I never use photos of minors in my portfolio, no matter how good they are unless I track down the parent afterward and get specific permission.

Best case is the parents have already agreed to use of photos at the beginning of the school year, and you can fall under that.

Releases are required when you use the image(s) commercially.
It gets into a gray area when you use those images for self-promotion. Some will say it is commercial use, while others say it is not.
My beliefs fall into the latter.

Thank you both!