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do you keep the doors open, the bills paid and the productions challenging and inspiring?
How do you juggle the task of balancing a budget when booking school sales and single ticket sales come nowhere near covering the cost of the productions? How do we keep our productions affordable and accessible to the community? How do we keep our education and community programs thriving when support for the arts is waning?
The Atlanta Workshop Players (AWP) is one of Atlanta's most prestigious non-profit, children's theater companies. Sales cover only 45% of our budget. AWP depends on the involvement and financial support of its audience and individuals with a passion for live theater and a commitment to the arts. Your generous donation to AWP will enable us to do the following: Sustain and continue to develop our programs. Positively impact the lives of our youth through quality programming while providing leadership skills, motivation and direction to the youth of metropolitan Atlanta. Further develop our curriculum to meet state educational needs and requirements. Provide scholarship opportunities to disadvantaged youth thereby enabling them to attend our summer and winter programs. Develop additional programs within our mission including mentoring and leadership development. Reach more schools throughout the nation with our educational tour show.
Here are a few excerpts from our scholarship recipients:
- After Hurricane Katrina, we had nothing. We lost our home, all our stuff even my puppy. My school was destroyed and so was the theatre where I did shows. Over night, everything in my life was just gone. The house I grew up in, pictures, toys, clothes, my favorite chair, memories....all gone and I’ll never get them back. So we ended up in Atlanta...not knowing anybody. No job, no money, no friends and no place to call home. I cried all the time. Then somebody gave me a scholarship to go to Camp Destiny. I made great new friends and found a creative place where I felt like I belonged again.
- I’m 8 years old and my mom has 3 jobs so she can take care of my sister and me. My father hurts us, so we are always moving so he can’t find us. We never know where we will be sleeping at night. We can’t afford anything special, like camp. My teacher knew how much my sister & I loved to sing.....so he filled out our scholarship forms and then when we got the scholarship to Camp Destiny, he bought us suitcases and new clothes to put in them and all our camp supplies. He gave us the best week of our life!
- My week at camp was the coolest thing ever. We did all kinds of acting stuff and other classes....it was AWESOME!!! The day I went home, I emptied my piggy bank....well, really it’s spiderman, but mom still calls it a piggy bank. I said this is to give to other kids so they can afford to go to camp and have as much fun as I did. I gave all my money to mom....three dollars and ninety seven cents.
- My first year at camp, mom couldn’t afford to drive me there, so AWP sent a nice man named David to give me a ride. I had a great, great time at camp, but when it was over, we couldn’t find my mom....she had been evicted from our apartment. So, for a coupla days I got to live with my new AWP Family until they found my mom. I come back every year because AWP really is a home to me. I am accepted. I have great friends and plenty of food to eat.
- My life is kinda like a bad movie, you know, poverty and danger. My dad was killed in a random drive by shooting right on our street. Yeah, it’s LIKE a bad movie, but in my life it’s for real. There are lots of drugs and fights in my neighborhood and I’m scared all the time. But AWP is different. People take care of each other. Support each other. Maybe everybody should go to AWP camp.
- When I was little, I dreamed of being a big star and singing for thousands of people. But sometimes, dreams have to wait. My mom is disabled and my grand mother can’t take care of herself, so I take care of them. I go to school then come home to feed and help them. Then I get up the next day and do it again. I love my family very much and I’ll always be there for them, but I needed something for me. The week at AWP camp was the only thing I did for myself this year. I’m grateful for the opportunity to follow my dreams.
- I’m the kid that everybody teases. It’s like I have this invisible target on me that only bullies can see with their special ‘bully vision’. I never fit in anywhere till I came to AWP camp. This is the ONLY place I ever
felt like I was accepted. At camp, people finally saw the real me. I smiled so much my cheeks hurt. I never would have believed it, but camp really is love.
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