PNT Receives Outpouring Of Support In Responce To $20,000 Challenge Grant

In an outpouring of community support, Performance Network has received $23,000 in new and increased donations after announcing it needed to raise $40,000 by April 15th.  Gifts of all sizes have come in from $1 and up. Generous donors are calling with donations and pledges and contributing through the PNT website. The show of support from the community has been overwhelming – heartfelt expressions of what PNT has meant to them resulting in heartwarming appreciation by the staff tabulating all the donations!   As of 5 pm today, April 10 - $23,252 has been donated or pledged to the community challenge.

A long time supporter called yesterday and said, “We just heard the news and want to make sure that the lights are kept on” and pledged an additional $10,000 to the challenge match. This fantastic news allowed the Network to increase the Challenge Amount to $30,000 and increase their fund raising goal to $60,000.  This will come within $15,000 of the benchmark given by the PNT Board of Directors to raise $75,000 of new and increased donations by the end of the fiscal year, October 1.

Executive Director Carla Milarch couldn’t be much happier about this response.  Milarch says, “We are blown away.  We thought that today we would still be working hard to meet our first benchmark.  Now, the generosity of our community has given us the momentum and the additional matching funds to work toward our $75k benchmark sooner than we expected.  Meeting this new $60,000 goal will enable us to announce our season from a very confident position.”

Development Director Janet Torno says, “The momentum is incredible. People from all around the country who have a meaningful connection to the theatre have phoned in and donated online.  We have received several touching messages about how much the theatre means to them.  Now, a new donor has joined the cause, with another $10k challenge to help put us over the top! Not only that, more than half of the donations we’ve seen have been from new donors.  We can’t wait to celebrate the success of this effort with all of them.”

The announcement yesterday raised a few additional questions regarding the postponement of its last show of the season, The Blonde, the Brunette and the Vengeful Redhead as well as about the subscriptions for the 2009-2010 season.  Ticket holders for our last show, which would have taken place July 23 – August 30, will receive a credit on their account and will be receiving a letter and or email within the next few weeks detailing various options for this credit.  While this may be an unexpected change, PNT is committed to mounting Robert Hewitt’s play in the next season.

Artistic Director David Wolber will be announcing the 2009-2010 Season within the month. Wolber states, ”The excitement is mounting - actors are being cast and directors are being chosen!  We are just now finalizing the details of this strong exciting group of plays that have already been shared in preview with our subscribers.”

Donations are being accepted on line at www.performancenetwork.org and on the phone, Monday through Saturday, 11 am to 6 pm 734.663.0681.

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