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The DREAM Scholarship
7047065748 • May 08, 2019
The DREAM Scholarship - Supporting Young and Developing DanceSport Talent
The DREAM Scholarship is established to encourage, support and reward the participation of children and youth in ballroom dance.
At DanceSport Education, we are dedicated to the success of the young DanceSport athletes. We want them to continue to learn, grow and develop competitively and remove as many financial barriers as possible that might stand in their way to get noticed, realize their talent and succeed at the top.
The funds for the DREAM Scholarship come from our on-going fundraising efforts to support the mission of DanceSport Education, and our major fundraising event – Imperial Ballroom’s Masquerade Ball Gala. We would like to encourage the kids participation at the Gala, which has grown to be one of the most prestigious black-tie events in Metro Phoenix with 300+ attendance and growing. The Gala is also a great opportunity for children to shine their talents and showcase their hard work in front of an incredible audience!
Our long-term vision is to build the DREAM Scholarship fund to a point where we would be able to provide meaningful, full-time and part-time scholarships to support young and developing DanceSport talent.
We cannot do this alone. We need a wide support to spread the word about the many benefits of ballroom dance and to educate the general public about ballroom dance and dancesport.
We are very active on social media, which can be reached through our web sitewww.dancesported.org. Like us and Follow us, read our posts, comment and share. This helps us tremendously, especially when we reach out to our existing donors – to sustain the funding at DanceSport Education as well as when we reach out to potential new donors. They see that we are strong community and they are more likely to consider funding us.
We would like to encourage your support of our fundraising efforts – whether through social media campaigns, or any of our special events, such as Masquerade Ball Gala. DanceSport Education is a tax-exempt non-profit organization and donations are tax-deductible.
Involve friends and family and people in your networks. Share your child’s achievements with them.
Also, many employers have matching donations programs. DanceSport Education is set to receive matching donations from companies and corporations. This doubles the fundraising efforts.
What we started is unprecedented, first of its kind in Metro Phoenix and Arizona. We are confident, that with our institutional capacity, guidance from our distinguished Advisory Board, we will be able to further contribute to the future and success of our young and developing DanceSport athletes!
Proud to Show What Our AZ Autism Charter School Students CAN Do!!!
Every day, our committed employees work to support the community we serve. Now, they need our help. Our organization is committed to ensuring that our employees are able to maintain financial stability and provide day-to-day necessities for their families during the coronavirus crisis. We bring the benefits of ballroom dance to the students at their schools, in their classrooms. But due to COVID outbreak, Arizona schools are now mandated to close through the end of the school year and out employees have lost their source of income. Their situation is further aggravated by the Stay-At-Home order issued for the state of Arizona. Our organization’s most urgent goal is to retain our highly qualified and specially trained personnel, who work with children with autism. Such personnel is rare to find and costly to train and retain. Under normal circumstances, our professionals are long-term committed to the program – however if we lose them because of the COVID-19 disaster, it would be virtually impossible to reinstate the program. Retaining our personnel is critical not only to the existence of the program, but also to the ultimate recipient – children with autism in a school set-up. We kindly ask that you join us in supporting our dedicated employees. Your gift will help provide immediate financial support so they can purchase essential food, medicines, and other supplies. Help keep our employees safe and healthy so they can eventually return to their work serving our community.
INVEST IN US! Let me share why you should invest in us. We are a small 501(c)(3) non-profit and we bring the benefits of ballroom dance to the students, at their schools, in their classrooms with the highest level of instruction! We make the art of ballroom dance affordable and accessible to all students, especially for those that are low income and at risk. This year, for the first time in Arizona we are bringing the benefits of ballroom dance to 230 K-12 students with autism at the Arizona Autism Charter Schools. It is Arizona's Only Autism-Focused Tuition-Free Charter public school. Students enrolled at this school are on the autism spectrum with varying degrees of intellectual/developmental disabilities. AZ Autism Charter School serves over 40% low income students. 15% of the students are African-American,1% American Indian, 5% - Asian, 51% - Hispanic and 28% white. The ballroom dance experience at the school is part of the students’ project-based life skills curriculum. Many studies and research findings have supported the positive implication of dance therapy to people with autism. We are at the school 4 days /week, delivering 40 ballroom dance classes every week. The impact of ballroom dance that we see is INCREDIBLE, especially with the highest impacted students! We take so many things for granted, including the ability to move, speak, coordinate our body and socialize. Our students need to learn all this, and the art of ballroom dance is helping them tremendously. These students enjoy, love and thrive in our classes. Until our program, they had no such opportunity available to them, alone an opportunity to express themselves in public and show what they CAN do. Please help us get the full $3,000 match by making your tax-deductible donation today. The funds will be used for rehearsals and extended support during their public event performances. This is an unprecedented commitment toward these students with special needs. They want and need to show to the public what they CAN do. This is the first of such successful efforts in Arizona! These students need your support! Say "YES" to them! We are their HOPE! All #AzGivesDay donations are *tax-deductible and will go toward rehearsals and extended support during their public event performances. Please help us get the full $3,000 match by making your tax-deductible donation today. THANK YOU! We are sincerely grateful for those who support our mission and enable us to bring the benefits of ballroom dance to the students with special needs, at their schools, in their classrooms. www.azgives.org/DanceSportEducation *The $2 trillion stimulus package includes the Charitable Giving Incentive, which lifts the existing cap on annual contributions for those who itemize, raising it from 60 percent of adjusted gross income to 100 percent. For corporations, the bill raises the annual limit from 10 percent to 25 percent. Elka Hristova Co-Founder and Director DanceSport Education
