| Organization information | |
|---|---|
| Organization Name | Chamber Music Festival of Saugatuck, Inc. |
| Please tell us the amount of funding you are requesting Aware to raise for your organization from the Aware annual fundraising event. | We are requesting a grant of $2000 from West Shore Aware to partially fund our music educational programs for 2025. We will offer Young Listener Concerts during the summer and in local grade schools reaching underserved students and others. Coaching sessions will be held for advanced high school wind and string students, and a string quartet will perform Bizet's "Ferdinand the Bull" in local grade schools. A student art contest at Saugatuck High School to create a poster for our 2025 publicity has already been held. We will again have our Internship Program for two college students who will assist with running our programs, interact with our artists, and learn the behind-the-scenes activities of a chamber music program. |
| If your organization received Aware funding in the previous years, how many clients were serviced and/or how many services were provided with those funds. If you receive Aware funding this current year, how many clients will be serviced and/or how many services will be provided with these funds? | CMFS received an AWARE grant of $2000 in 2012 to complete funding of the Joan Conway Young Artists Program endowment. Since then CMFS has received AWARE grants of $1700 in 2022, $2000 in 2016, 2020, 2021, and 2023, and $1000 in 2018 and 2019 to partially fund our educational programs. Number of services and use of funds are described below. |
| Please provide a listing of the Officers and Board members of your organization. | President: Joe O'Hara |
| Your Contact Information | Doug Walvoord |
| Phone | 616-405-2366 |
| Email hidden; Javascript is required. | |
| Scoring Criteria | |
| 1. Description of the Organization (maximum 5 points, please limit to ½ pages) | The Chamber Music Festival of Saugatuck, now in its 38th consecutive season, is dedicated to keeping chamber music vibrant and alive. Our traditional chamber music series next summer will again have six duplicated evening concerts on Thursday and Friday evenings in July and August at the Saugatuck Woman's Club. Our educational programs will continue during the school year and summer in local schools, the Saugatuck/Douglas library, and at the Woman's Club. Our programming encourages a sense of belonging and involves the audience as an active part of the experience. Music education has always been an important part of our mission. Our current educational outreach includes music programs for students of all ages from underserved area grade schools stimulating the love of music in young minds and hearts to programs for advanced high school and college levels. Adults are encouraged to attend any and all free concerts and often enjoy the programs as much as the students. Young Listeners' Concerts featuring our guest artists are held in the Saugatuck-Douglas Library or Saugatuck Woman's Club. Our musicians attempt to reach children introducing them to classical and modern music at a level they can understand. We have coaching sessions in multiple regional high schools where musicians help prepare string and wind players for their performances in state competitions. We sponsor a student art contest at Saugatuck High School where the winning student creates art for our media and wins a monetary stipend and tickets to a concert. The Joan Conway Young Artists program continues to fund internships for two college students as they assist with running our summer programs and learn what goes on behind the scenes. In all these programs CMFS adds an important dimension to our area's reputation as an Arts Community attracting audiences from Holland, Kalamazoo, South Haven, Muskegon, Grand Rapids and well beyond. |
| 2. Funding Request (maximum 35 points, total, please limit to 1 page) | Our request is for a grant of $2000 from AWARE to assist funding our music education programs for students of all ages and abilities from grade school through college. We focus on underserved youth in Allegan County as well as advanced students in area high schools and are actively working to encourage and enable young people to attend our evening concerts. Our education programs are coordinated by our Artistic Director, Kimia Ghaderi, and Vivian Adel Boot, a well known local music educator with wide connections in our area. This grant would greatly enhance our ability to continue and grow this valuable program. During 2024 a Young Listener Concert was held at the Saugatuck-Douglas District Library and included a wonderful presentation by the Ann Arbor based Bayberry String Quartet to a room packed with enthusiastic young listeners. In the summer of this year we are hoping to have funds available to schedule two outstanding education groups, a string quartet and reed quintet. A string quartet from the Holland Symphony presented the entertaining story of Ferdinand the Bull using music from Bizet's opera, Carmen, in Fennville and Douglas Elementary Schools, and we hope to repeat this in 2025 as an assembly-wide event. The students were enthralled. Our musicians have held coaching sessions for string and wind students in West Ottawa and Fennville high Schools helping them prepare for performances at State Solo & Ensemble competitions. We hope to increase this program. Our long-standing Joan Conway Young Artists' Program for two or three gifted college students continues. These interns assist with all aspects of running our summer concert series, interact with our artists directly in many ways, and learn what happens behind the scene when putting on successful chamber music programs. We also fund a contest for art students at Saugatuck High School to create a music-themed work which we use for our programs, poster, and other promotional materials. This year's winner has already been selected from a large number of very creative entries. This has been a very successful artistic outreach, and the winner receives a small cash stipend, comp tickets to a performance, and recognition in the local media and at our concerts. |
| 3. Funding Justification (maximum 40 points, please limit to 1 page) | CMFS is requesting a grant of $2000 to partially fund our education program during our 2025 season. These programs are varied and designed to offer music educational opportunities not otherwise available in our community. They are designed to stimulate children and students of all ages to grow in their love and appreciation of all types of music. A Young Listener's Concert was presented last summer at the Saugatuck-Douglas Library by the Bayberry String Quartet based in Ann Arbor, and next summer we hope to have two similar events. Funding for these outstanding music educators is outside our educational budget, but with an AWARE grant we hope to make it happen. Our programs have grown in side and variety, and your assistance will help us reach more students increasing their love of music. We have budgeted $8,100 for our education program in 2025, and your assistance would greatly help us accomplish our expanded educational goals and hopefully exceed them. Partial funding for this program will come from a Michigan Arts and Culture Council grant and donors who have a special interest in our educational outreach. Ticket income from our regular summer evening concerts provides only one fourth of our annual revenue, so we must rely on grants and donor support to fund all of our totally free educational events. In 2025 we received a Michigan Arts and Culture (MACC) grant of $22,500 providing $17,500 for funding artist stipends and $5,000 for our education program. Other operating funding comes from ticket income, individual gifts, and business donations. We received $1,700 from AWARE in 2022, $1,000 in 2018 and 2019, and $2,000 in 2016, 2020, 2021,and 2023 to help fund this program. Hopefully, the future value of our student education program is obvious, and we assure you of our diligent stewardship and effective us of any funds AWARE would give us. We would be proud to acknowledge AWARE'S gift in our programs and in other publicity. The funds we are requesting are not for general operation. If the funds requested in this grant are not used for our education programs as described, we will return them to AWARE. If requested, we will be happy to provide a detailed accounting of how the funds are spent. |
| 4. Summary | The Chamber Music Festival of Saugatuck requests a grant of $2000 from West Shore Aware to partially fund our music education programs for 2025. We reach youth of all ages from underserved Allegan county grade school students to very talented college seniors. We provide educational opportunities that otherwise simply would not be possible. We sponsor Young Listener Concerts which are performed at the Saugatuck-Douglas Library by our musicians with special talents as music educators. Last year the Ann Arbor based Bayberry String Quartet performed there to an overflow audience, and we plan similar events this summer. Coaching sessions are held in local high schools for string and wind instrument students preparing them for state competitions. We are again presenting the very entertaining string quartet version of "Ferdinand the Bull" in Douglas and Fennville grade schools. The winner of the Saugatuck High School art contest who creates art for our publicity has already been announced, and the Joan Conway Internship Program continues. Education has been a primary focus of CMFS since its founding 38 years ago, and we thank you for your consideration as we try to reach more children through this program. |
| Application Agreement | This is an application, otherwise known as a Request for Funding (RFF), from
West Shore Aware. This RFF is a request from your organization to Aware, for Aware to host a
Fundraising Event for your organization. By completing this RFF, your organization is requesting to be considered by Aware’s membership for an Aware fundraising event to be held during the summer of this year, also known as the White Party.
If your organization is chosen for a fundraising event by the Aware membership, your organization will agree to the following terms and conditions for the said fundraising event. 1. Aware will be given and provided full credit for the fundraising event in all of you organization’s publicity and advertising for said event, to include but not limited to event posters, newspaper advertising, handouts, radio and television advertising for the event, and organizational announcements concerning the event. 2. Your organization will only use the funds raised by Aware from said event for the purpose described in the RFF submitted to Aware. 3. Your organization understands that West Shore Aware is a philanthropic organization of LBGTQ+ individuals and their supporters, and that the funds your organization receives from Aware will be coming from the West Michigan lakeshore community. 4. The funds received from Aware as a result of the fundraising event will be net, after expenses for said fundraising event are paid. 5. Aware may use the name of your organization in its own advertising and publicity as a recipient of funds.. 6. Your organization will supply Aware with written approval to hold, or be part of a fundraising event held by Aware. 7. West Shore Aware reserves the right to audit any organization that receives funding to determine whether the funds were used as described in its RFF. 8. Your organization will allow West Shore Aware to use you organization’s name on the West Shore Aware website. In addition, if your organization has a website, you will link that website to the West Shore Aware website and allow West Shore Aware to link to your organization’s site. West Shore Aware’s web site link must remain on your web site for a full year from the date of the monetary disbursement. Failure to do so will disqualify you from requesting future funding. Once you have completed the RFF and agreed to the aforementioned, please submit it. Please sign this document below, indicating acceptance of the aforementioned terms and conditions. By signing the document, you acknowledge your organization is a registered 501(C) 3 Charitable organization. |
| Signature | |
| Date | 03/06/2025 |
| Ready to Submit |
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