A letter from our beneficiary!

"viBe has taught me to take all my negative experiences and turn them into positive artistic pieces. viBe is a place where I can grow. viBe is my escape, a fantasy island, where everyone has a chance to show who they truly are. I don’t know where I would be or what I’d be if viBe hadn’t showed me the way." –Elba 17

June 11, 2011

Dear Andrea and everyone involved with V-Day NYC Triad Theatre,

On behalf of viBe Theater Experience, I need and want to express the most massive and exuberant THANK YOU to your amazing, inspiring and absolutely successful fundraising efforts with your glorious production of The Vagina Monologues! As a small, struggling nonprofit organization, it is always challenging for us to raise the money to support our work running free afterschool arts programs with underserved teenage girls in New York City. We celebrate our 9th birthday this summer and for the past few years have been aggressively searching for a home/office. We have produced more than 55 different performance-based projects and productions since 2002 and have always relied on donated or subsidized rehearsal spaces, even at times rehearsing in my own apartment or in city parks when we lacked the resources to pay for space.

This past winter, we found our dreamhouse! The Brooklyn YWCA had recently completed an extraordinary renovation and has rented several rooms in their building to organizations with a girls-based, social justice mission. They accepted viBe and we were nervous about how we could afford to pay the rent. We knew being in a building with fierce, feminist neighbors such as Girls for Gender Equity, Planned Parenthood’s Teen Advocates program, Center for Nonviolence Education and Dwa Famn (among others) and also home to the Brooklyn Girls Coalition, a group of more than 20 organizations that serve girls in Brooklyn was just too amazing to pass up.

But we were worried. We knew we had raise at least $5000 to make the move happen and so many of our foundation partners don’t want to pay for “rent” or “overhead,” they only want to fund our direct program expenses. But we knew that this move would transform viBe and make it possible for us to offer so many different programs for girls. Then Andrea came along and offered to produce the Vagina Monologues. We immediately said yes, and hoped that maybe they would raise $3000 for viBe. But… Wow!

They absolutely exceeded our expectations and the funds they raised have made it possible for viBe to move into this gorgeous new home! Also, just as important as the money, Andrea and her team have built an amazing network of viBe volunteers and supporters who we will work with for many more years and will continue to support our efforts to provide spaces for girls to express themselves through the performing arts. In fact, we are so impressed with Andrea’s work that we invited her to be a member of viBe’s board of directors.

None of this would have been possible without VDAY. Thank you most viBrantly!

Dana Edell, PhD

Executive Director

dana@viBeTheater.org

PO BOX 1478 • NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10027 • (917) 647 0326 • www.vibetheater.org

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