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WHO WE ARE
The Mercer Island Fine Arts Advisory Committee (FAAC) is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation dedicated to supporting K-12 fine arts education in the Mercer Island School District.
Our Board of Directors is comprised of twelve volunteers, all parents of children variously enrolled, across many grades, in our district’s band, orchestra, choir, drama, dance and visual arts classes. We meet monthly throughout the academic year. Our meetings are also attended by our non-voting district liaison, David Bentley, MISD Fine Arts Coordinator.
WHAT WE DO
Musical Instrument Rental Night
Each fall, the FAAC helps new music students and their families get ready for the school year at our Musical Instrument Rental Night. We invite several local vendors to attend with their wares. Our district music teachers provide tips for selecting a good starter instrument. Because the vendors provide a donation, the event is also a modest fundraiser.
Fine Arts Showcase
Combining dazzling performance and display with outreach to sponsors, the FAAC annually co-presents Showcase, Mercer Island School District’s primary fundraiser for enhancement and expansion of fine arts education programs. Showcase takes up two very full evenings each spring. Its complex planning takes up most of the FAAC board’s time throughout the year.
Broadway Across America Fundraisers
In 2007, we undertook for the first time a new fundraising venture in association with Broadway Across America, which donated to FAAC its usual $10 processing fee for each advance ticket we sold to an evening performance of “Spamalot.” This was an effective fundraiser, and great fun for all who went to the show.
Since then, we have expanded our collaboration with Broadway Across Amererica and offered supporters of MISD fine arts education more opportunities to donate, by buying advance tickets through FAAC to see "Disney's High School Musical", "Phantom of the Opera", "Wicked", "Annie" and more! Watch for Broadway Across America announcements via email.
WHERE THE MONEY GOES
In each of the past three academic years, the FAAC has donated on average approximately $10,000 per year to fine arts education programming across our district, and approximately $1,000 total in additional individual grants to a small number of Mercer Island High School students selected by the fine arts faculty based on need and merit.
About 40% of FAAC's total annual donation to the district is distributed among all the schools, according to an enrollment-based formula, as grants for the visual arts. The remaining 60% of FAAC grants are distributed among the district's performing arts programs - drama, band, orchestra, choir and dance - as collectively determined each year by the fine arts faculty.
Currently, we are able to allot in grants about 80% of our annual budget. By far the majority of our annual expenses are incurred in producing Showcase, which is in turn also by far our largest source of revenue.
WHY FINE ARTS EDUCATION MATTERS
Fine arts education helps students understand and evaluate the culture they live in. It teaches respect for tradition while encouraging innovation.
A full fine arts curriculum provides multiple opportunities for self-expression and collaboration. Young musicians, actors, dancers and visual artists discover their own talents and learn how to apply them with others in a whole effort that is greater than its parts. Both kinds of experience promote healthy self-esteem.
Fine arts students learn that excellence comes with practice, and that problem solving requires creativity. Along with a foundation for individual artistry, students carry into adulthood important values that enrich their own lives and the world they inhabit and will inherit.
WHAT SETS FAAC APART
Our community has a well-deserved reputation for supporting its children and schools. There are many organizations seeking donations to those ends. Why contribute to the Mercer Island Fine Arts Advisory Committee? What’s different about us?
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The FAAC is all about and only about fine arts education. Every penny we can possibly pass along directly benefits our schools’ fine arts programs and the students enrolled in them.
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The FAAC grant process is greatly respectful of our fine arts teachers’ time and judgment. Fine arts teachers do not have to write grant proposals to the FAAC Board. Their share and use of our annual total donation is determined by the faculty themselves, not us.
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In addition to financial support, the FAAC offers advocacy. Our objective is to facilitate inclusion of the fine arts as essential core disciplines in the primary and seconday education provided by Mercer Island School District.
OUR HISTORY
The FAAC has evolved through several decades of intensive volunteer work by parents and other community leaders dedicated to fine arts education in the Mercer Island School District (MISD).
With thorough research and tireless advocacy, volunteer members of FAAC’s predecessor organizations – the Music and Visual Arts Advisory Committees, formed respectively in the late 1950’s and 1970’s – proposed, promoted and achieved implementation of several key components of our schools’ fine arts programming, including:
- Full time MISD Music (now Fine Arts) Coordinator position
- District-wide annual fine arts celebration and fundraiser: Showcase
- Art Docents and Artists-in-Residence programs
- Inclusion of the fine arts as core subjects in MISD educational goals for all grade levels
OUR GOALS
- Maintain a website good enough to pay for itself!
- Increase community awareness of the FAAC and its mission.
- Encourage and enable individual and corporate financial support year-round, not just in connection with Showcase.
- Increase Showcase ticket sales and sponsorships by offering the conveniences of online and credit card donations.
- Partner again with Broadway Across America to sponsor fun and effective fundraisers through ticket sales to quality musical productions showing in our area.
- Make Showcase 2010 the best yet!
- Increase the grant allotment percentage of total revenues.
- Engage in productive discussion about needs and means in our schools’ fine arts programs.
HOW YOU CAN HELP
Donate now to the Mercer Island Fine Arts Advisory Committee.
Add your name and contact information to our mailing list.
Contact us with your questions and comments, and your suggestions for this website.
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