The annual appeal from NEMPAC’s Executive Director, Becca Griffin:
Dear Neighbor,
At the end of each year, I like to step back from my daily activities, and reflect on all the things that NEMPAC has done during the past 12 months. A few highlights: We hosted our very first summer evening concert series on the Prado – free and open to everyone thanks to a very generous anonymous donation from one of your neighbors. We offered daytime weekly interactive concerts and programs to kids throughout the summer – free to everyone with funding from Mayor Menino through the Boston ROCKS grant program. We offered many free events on the Prado such as Pumpkin Painting, Opera Night, Jammin’ with Jeremy, and our Halloween Pizza Party with your donations, and with outside funding. Our website got a facelift: www.nempacboston.org by NEMPAC’s Board President, Matt Black, who generously donated his time and efforts to this project. We celebrated our 10 year birthday at our Annual Spring Fling, and hosted our First Annual Hoot and Howl Halloween fundraising event – both with the help of several NEMPAC Board members, and with the support of numerous North End businesses who donated gift certificates, sporting tickets, or services for our silent auction.
We continue to grow our Private Music Instruction Program and our class offerings. Our current class offerings include yoga, children’s music, Adult and Children’s Italian, MyGym, A Children’s Musical Theatre Workshop, Kids Rock Band, Adult Group Guitar, and a variety of adult one time lecture performances. We welcome 40 to 50 kids each and every school day at the adjacent Boston Public Eliot School, providing music and arts programming from 7:30am to 9:10am. We continue to face paint, offer art activities, perform music, and volunteer at neighborhood events. We continue to grow our enthusiasm, our programming, our number of borrowed spaces and our NEMPAC community. We are able to do all that we do because we have an ever-growing group of committed, hardworking employees and volunteers making it all happen. We use donated funds, space, time, instruments, and energies. We have the support of you, our community. I feel extremely lucky and appreciative to live and work in such a supportive neighborhood! Thank you!
Like so many small community-based non-profits, our revenue falls short of our expenses. Only 80% of our $200,000 annual operating budget is covered by tuition and fees. Currently, NEMPAC has more than 250 students participating in its programs each week. Over the past four years, this number has increased by 25% each year. This growth requires us to continually seek out new and larger meeting spaces, equipment, materials and funds.
During this time of giving, I am asking for your financial support. Please consider the role NEMPAC plays in this community, and what that is worth to you. No donation is too large, or too small.
As an example of what your donation could provide:
- Maestro: $500 allows a scholarship student to study at NEMPAC for 10 months,
- Symphony: $250 covers time and materials for us to prepare and perform at a community event,
- Quartet: $100 purchases a gently used instrument for use in our programs,
- Friends: $25-$100 purchases art supplies for our Eliot School program for one week.
On behalf of the children and families of our great neighborhood, thank you for your generous support of our wonderful community-based non-profit music and performing arts center.
Sincere Thanks, and Have a Wonderful Holiday Season,
Rebecca Griffin,
NEMPAC Executive Director
NEMPAC,
P.O. Box 130255, Boston, MA. 02113
Headquartered on The Prado in a George Robert White Fund Facility
www.nempacboston.org
