Annual Benefit Fundraiser
Annual Benefit Fundraiser
Traditionally, our spring concert is based on a central theme, and involves a semester-long focus that builds towards that theme. In order to cultivate a sense of citizenship and community responsibility in our dancers, the OHS Department of Dance hosts a benefit fundraiser in connection with our theme. This great opportunity allows us to connect dance with the greater world around us and the societal issues we all face.
Read on to learn about the wonderful ways we have been making a difference!
May 2023, dANcIMALIA
This concert was a celebration of the Animal Kingdom. We learned about the many varied creatures with whom we share our home planet. We studied adaptations, social behaviors, and habitats and even participated in Arizona State University's March Mammal Madness!
As our department focused on learning about celebrating our amazing animal allies, we chose to donation a portion of our proceeds to a local organization dedicated to the care and rehabilitation of our own Utah Wildlife. Our community was able to donate $1,043.50 to the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Northern Utah in order to assist our local wildlife, and the Center's move to a new location!
The Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Northern Utah is a 501(c)(3) non-profit that successfully releases over 100 different species of native wildlife annually. In addition to saving wildlife, they also provide community education about our wild friends and the important of the stewardship of the environment that we share.
Since they opened their doors in 2009, they have taken in thousands of sick, orphaned, and injured wildlife (most due to human impact) and have given them a second chance for life in the wild. Through wildlife education, they hope to minimize our impact.
May 2022, Bon Voyage!
This concert was a celebration of global travel and all the Earth's many beautiful people and places. We learned from local experts about other cultural forms of dance, and enjoyed our time dancing with as she taught as about the Classical Indian Dance Bharatanatyam, and as they helped us explore Ghanaian dance forms. As we prepared a concert inspired by our global community, the eyes of the world turned to Ukraine.
Years of a diplomatic impasse between Russia and Ukraine escalated when airstrikes by the Russian Federation were launched against the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, and other cities, and the Ukrainian people were suddenly at war, defending their country. This sharp change of events has left millions of Ukrainians displaced, or fleeing the country, and triggered a large-scale humanitarian crisis.
As our department focused on the responsibility of being a global citizen, we chose to donate a portion of our proceeds through Global Giving to the Women's Federation for World Peace and one of their Ukrainian projects.
Our community was able to donate $750 to the organization in order to assist more than 400 Ukrainian refugees. Recipients had access to practical and psychological help while settling into new places, recovering emotionally, and adapting to their new surroundings. We were especially excited about this project's focus on refugee children receiving art therapy!
The Women's Federation for World Peace is a women's organization that empowers women as peacebuilders and leaders in the family to transform the community, nation, and world. Through education, advocacy, partnership, reconciliation, and humanitarian service, WFWPI aims to create an environment of peace and well-being for future generations and people of all races, cultures, and religious creeds.
WFWPI has been granted General Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.
Global Giving's Project #22397 was organized by WFWPI and provided psychological integration workshops, art therapy, humanitarian aid, and other rehabilitian and practical help for more than 200 Ukrainian refugee families. The project aimed to help more than 1000 internally displaced people, especially women and children who have been facing the horror of war, from different areas of Ukraine.
2020 and 2021
We took a small break here during the global pandemic. :)
March 2019, Broadway Bound
While Broadway Bound was meant to be an entertaining production that paid homage to the Great White Way, we also connected our theme to individual dreams and what our metaphorical “name in lights” would mean to each of us. We studied the way in which theater thrives on dreams and discovered Only Make Believe, an organization that creates interactive theater experiences for chronically ill and disabled children. Our community was able to donate over $600 to the organization and fund a trunk filled with handmade costumes and props for children in long-term hospitals.
OMB’s mission is to give joy and inspiration to as many sick children as possible. They bring professional actors into hospital wards to entertain children with specially created plays designed for their needs and to encourage their participation. We send teams of actors for six consecutive weeks with six different shows so the kids can get to know our actors and our actors get to know and love the kids.
The plays are performed against a simple backdrop with a trunk filled with costumes and props used by both actors and children. The painted trunks, all different and all painted by our wonderful volunteers stay in the hospitals as a permanent gift to be enjoyed long after the actors have finished their performances.
OMB is dedicated to the principle that engaging a child’s imagination is a valuable part of healing and learning. Therefore every child in the audience takes an active part in creating a world of fantasy and fun in order to transcend the boundaries of hospital walls.
March 2018, Seeking Refuge
As we focused on the idea of refuge and the human need for places of physical and emotional safety, we took the opportunity to pay attention to the current global refugee crisis. We partnered with the International Rescue Committee and The Spice Kitchen Incubator to provide an educational and entertaining evening for our community.
The representatives from the International Rescue Committee were amazed at the generosity of our community, and so excited and grateful to be a part of such an event. Together, we raised over $1,000 to directly aid newly arrived Refugee families in the Salt Lake area, and the Ahtti Korean Munchies food truck earned over $400 in just a couple hours! See below for more information about these great organizations.
The International Rescue Committee responds to the world’s worst humanitarian crises and helps people whose lives and livelihoods are shattered by conflict and disaster to survive, recover, and gain control of their future. Each year, thousands of people, forced to flee violence and persecution, are welcomed by the people of the United States into the safety and freedom of America. These individuals have survived against incredible odds. The IRC works with government bodies, civil society actors, and local volunteers to help them translate their past experiences into assets that are valuable to their new communities. In Salt Lake City and other offices across the country, the IRC helps them to rebuild their lives.
SPICE Kitchen Incubator is a food business incubator focused on creating opportunities for refugees and disadvantaged individuals. The goal is to improve the chances of start-up and early-stage businesses of growing into healthy, viable companies. SPICE Kitchen Incubator ensures participants have affordable access to commercial kitchen space where they can learn commercial kitchen operations, proper food handling procedures, and the necessary steps to continue building their businesses.