The Power Of Performance: Fall 2024 Direct Give Campaign

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Why Do We Need to Raise Funds When I Just Paid my Fees?

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We’re glad you asked!

If your student has been involved in music in Seattle Public schools for a while, you’ve always paid a fee to participate in a program and have likely donated to fundraisers as well.

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Fees are not part of the Boosters Budget; they are pass-through funds to cover minimal costs:

• The camp fees simply cover costs of any food, transportation, and additional instructors. 

• Class fees for Jazz and Fiddlers, etc. also help cover some of the costs for the instructors’ time and music for those specific classes. 

• The $155 program fee music families pay at the beginning of the year covers the bare minimum for basic state-required music curriculum. Think of it like the fees you pay for science or other classes. The annual program helps to pay for uniforms, tee shirts, festival fees, instrument repair, sheet music, transportation for day field trips, and other supplies that support the students and the program. 

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If bare minimum is where our directors stopped, the program would look completely different than it does. No Jazz Band, no Fiddlers, etc. No Masterworks at the winter concerts, choreographers, playwrights, drum coaches or other help. The Ballard Performing Arts program has always delivered a high-quality, award-winning program that has garnered awards and invitations to perform at prestigious music halls and festivals such as Carnegie Hall and Ellington Jazz Festival. 

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Help Us Provide Access

Take a look at the yellow section in the pie graph. The BPA Boosters Club is committed to ensuring every student can participate fully in weekend long camps, day field trips to attend festivals or parades, and overnight field trips for competitions or performances in world-renowned venues like Carnegie Hall and Disneyland. 

 

Sadly, the school district does not pay for any of these expenses so the financial burden falls on our families. Thanks to generous BPA supporters, like you, who donated during our direct appeal last fall, we were able to help level the playing field and provide access by giving out nearly $30,000 in scholarships. 

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Help Us Achieve Excellence through Community Engagement

As you can see from last year’s expenses, the largest portion of our budget is allocated to human capital! With a program average student to teacher ratio of ~80:1, our programs would not be the highly-acclaimed and award-winning groups that they are without the support of our community of coaches, accompanists, and industry experts. 

 

The BPA Booster Board is dedicated to supporting our directors’ efforts to bring in experts from the performing arts field to work with our students during full classes, instrument or voice specific sectional groups, as well as before and after school gatherings to support our theatre production, specialty performance jazz and fiddler groups. These professionals not only elevate the quality of our students’ educational experience, but they also provide access to hands-on, customized coaching that students might not have had the opportunity to experience privately, and more importantly…they connect our students and families to the broader performing arts community. 

 

If you’d like to read more about some of these amazing professionals, click here to read their bios. 

 

This direct appeal is our primary fundraiser for the year aiming to raise $35,0000. 

 

If every family donates $115 per student we will meet our goal in no time! 

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The campaign will run from Oct 3rd - Nov 10, 2024.

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