The Uptown Music Collective has announced the start of its annual fundraising campaign for the 2012-13 school year. The campaign, which kicked off with the schools successful "Jagged Little Pill: Two Decades of Women in Rock" performance at the Community Arts Center, went into high gear recently with the mailing of its annual appeal letter. The campaign will run through early February.
"Like all nonprofits, we look to the community at this time of year to help us support the work we do with the youth of our area," UMC Executive Director Dave Brumbaugh said. "Although we charge tuition, the revenue generated from our tuition based programs only covers 70 percent of our operational expenses, the rest must be raised through fundraising and the school's renowned performance programs."
The Uptown Music Collective, founded in April of 2000, became a nonprofit organization in 2004. Since that time the school has been recognized for its work and received support from many local and national organizations, such as: the Woodcock Foundation for the Appreciation of the Arts, the Williamsport-Lycoming Community Foundation, The Billtown Blues Association, the Hot Topic Foundation, Music2Life, The Blues Foundation, The Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and most recently The National Endowment for the Arts.
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"Foundation grants and donations allow us to improve our programs, provide incredible experiences for our students and purchase state of the art equipment to facilitate our music education efforts. Unfortunately, it is hard to find support for the more mundane needs like administrative expenses, staffing and facility expenses," Brumbaugh said.
"Donations of any size are appreciated," said Tracey Tillet, the Uptown Music Collective's development director and head of the school's Annual Fundraising Campaign. "Fifty dollars pays to clean an ensemble room for a month or supports half of the monthly tuition of a needy student. Every dollar is appreciated and important and every donor matters!"
To offset expenses, the school runs many fundraising events and projects throughout the year, in addition to its annual campaign. This year the school is selling the Uptown Music Collective a 2013 Full Color Calendar, featuring large scale performance photos, taken by area photographer Wayne Palmer, of students performing on the Community Arts Center stage.
The school also is selling a compilation CD of alumni and current students produced by students Dylan Rockoff and Maverick Vicars. The CD features all original music including tracks from Morgan Myles, Akron Family, Seth Olinsky, Ben Geise (Glimdropper), Alex Callenberger (Clawfoot Slumber), Sean Farley and more.
For more information about the UMC annual campaign or to make an online donation, visit www.uptownmusic.org/donate.
For more information, email Tillet at tracey @uptownmusic.org.
