The Second Annual Ambassadors of Harmony Foundation Gala was February 17th, 2018, and did it knock our socks off! We have been driving towards becoming a more arts-minded organization for several years now, mostly by increasing connections with the youth of the St. Louis metro area. Our gala presented a lot of that story, with an interactive video about some of the kids who benefited from previous donations, and an appearance by the 2017 Acappellooza Summer Youth Chorus and the Recruits.
We have given a college scholarship for over 20 years, and have run an autumn music field trip called Acappellooza Fall since 2002, but in the last six years our youth impact has been going into overdrive, with the introduction of a youth chorus in 2012 (The Recruits), a four-day summer camp since 2013 (Acappellooza Summer), a youth quartet formation program called Project Harmony, and most recently a fall a cappella festival called Acafest. Altogether in 2017 we engaged 1,518 kids. With so many activities impacting the youth, it made sense to create a Foundation to allow the community to partner with us so that we could extend our impact and especially focus on helping kids who would otherwise have financial issues to pursue their musical dreams. The Foundation is a tangible entity with visibility regarding how it accomplishes its purpose of enabling kids to experience the joy of music that we ourselves feel.
St. Charles Mayor Sally Faith bids on directing the chorus for a song onstage.
Dr. Jim Henry with BHS president Marty Monson, Amy Monson, & Co-Director Jonny Moroni
With that in mind, last year we kicked off our inaugural gala in support of the Foundation, and raised over $36,000 with the help of 180 attendees. Those funds deepened the community footprint of our programs by decreasing the burden for attendance to our immersive summer program. As a result the number of students engaged went from 111 to 170 from 2016 to 2017. We are thrilled to report that our second annual event surpassed the first, and with the help of 244 attendees, we raised over $56,000! Donations came in the form of silent and live auction items/purchases, monetary donations, seat reservations, and a paddle auction for scholarship donations. As a result, we are hoping to see even more community engagement, and for the camp alone we hope to exceed 200 kids.
None of this growth would be possible without the continued support of community members like you. Thanks for partnering with us. We look forward to even more great things to come, as we continue to insert the 'A' into the middle of the educational STEM to produce STEAM for the arts! If you'd like to partner with us financially, you can donate here.
