How you can help

Posted 12/1/08
Dear UNI Suzuki Parents,

I am Cathy Howland, your UNI Suzuki Association President. The UNI Suzuki Association (UNISA) is a support organization for the UNI Suzuki School. We organize the receptions during recitals, provide paid accompanists for group classes and recitals, student needs-based scholarships, support professional growth for teachers through workshops and scholarships to attend training institutes, and many other things. This year we are focusing our energy toward buying a high quality digital video camera to record students in their lessons, at recitals and spring concerts, for teachers to use to improve instruction and learning.

In the past we have done a number of fundraisers. Some are ongoing, such as the Espressivo t-shirts or music bags and the red-white UNI Suzuki t-shirts and the Kohl's cards. Others are once a year or once in a while events. We have done play-a-thons where kids raised money for minutes played at one of the shopping centers. This was fun, but is no longer an option at our malls. Other fundraisers have included selling candy and frozen foods, a traveling 8' treble clef, operating a frozen yogurt booth at the College Hill Arts Festival, and selling one-of-a-kind ornaments. Many of these fundraisers require a big monetary and time investment and are labor intensive to carry through.

This year, we have received several offers for help with fundraising. There are several things you can do to help UNISA.

* If you shop at Kohl's, purchasing Kohl's cards through Lisa Hurban (hurbanl@cfu.net) gives UNISA a 3-5% return on the purchase. These make good gifts or can be used for your own purchases.

* Cathy Craig has coupon gift cards for Tony's Trattoria (owned by a Suzuki family) that will give you 20 times the cost in free items and discounts.

* We still have some music-themed pewter Christmas ornaments that were designed by Annette Andres, a former UNI Suzuki parent, that feature a Christmas tree with fingerboard and scroll (violin, viola, cello or bass) as the tree trunk. These are $10 each and can be worn as a pin, a pendant or used as a tree ornament.

* On Tuesday, December 9, we will have our annual holiday play-in. This year, instead of filling us all with sweets following the play-in, Godfather's restaurant on 1^st St. and Hudson Road in Cedar Falls, is sponsoring a coupon night for us. We will be receiving at least $2.00 for each pizza purchased with the special coupon (to be passed out at group classes and made available at the restaurant. Let's fill the place! What a great opportunity to relax and break bread with members of our Suzuki family that we don't see too often!

* For those of you who purchased music themed jewelry from Lightworks at recitals, 20% of your purchase price is being donated back to Suzuki. Thank you!

* There will be other fundraising opportunities as we move through the year. If you have ideas for fundraising, please let our fundraising chair, Lorelei Heisinger (loreleilaw@mchsi.com) or me know.

Thank you all for all you do to support our organization. We all do what we can to help our kids to experience a world of wonderful music.

Sincerely,

Cathy Howland

howlandc@cedar-falls.k12.ia.us

IN ADDITION to the ways listed above, donations to fund our scholarship program are always welcome as well as used instruments, sheet music (Suzuki books, solo and intermediate string ensembles), classical music CD's, and used violin cases.

The success of the UNI Suzuki School and its ability to offer activities and incentives beyond the instruction and performance level depends in part on the generosity of families and friends. To see the areas where you can volunteer your services, please click here for a form you can fill in and mail in to:

UNI Suzuki School, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, IA 50614-0246.