Dear Buttonwood Tree Community,
We are coming to the end of a very busy calendar year. The events and performances of the past twelve months have been a wonderful reawakening after the last two years of establishing a new normal. However, audiences are still smaller as people learn our doors are open, and we need your financial support.
Thanks in part to members and donors, some examples of our accomplishments include:
- Recruiting six new Board members, for a total of eight. This means new leadership, which you can learn more about on our website.
- Leveraging Network for Good to help us streamline and automate ticket sales, membership transactions, and donations.
- Welcoming new programming such as Hip-Hop Open Mic, and the Amistad film to provide an inclusive environment and connect with a broader audience.
Our next steps are a Board Retreat to strategize next year’s programming, our Membership Drive in January, Board recruitment, and fundraising. We plan to continue to broaden our audience by offering more youth, poetry, and LGBTQIA+ dedicated events.
Although we are nominally supported by a combination of grants from The Community Foundation, CT Humanities, the City of Middletown MCA, ticket and product sales, and memberships, we are still trying to recover from the financial effects of COVID shutdowns and rely on your generous year-end donations.
Please consider donating as much as you can to support our programming.
A recent visitor reached out to tell us,
“This past Sunday we were walking by The Buttonwood Tree and were so lucky to have stopped in. Thank you for offering an amazing place where artists, musicians, poets, and people can feel free to express themselves and share their time & talent. In fact, just being there awakened something in me that I thought was lost.”
With the financial support of our donors, this unique place can continue to provide an arts and cultural center that is a safe space for the poet to be heard, the vulnerable to find community, the artist to display their creations, and the performer to sing, play, dazzle, show off, rock out, get down, and bring the excitement of live performance to audiences in an intimate, memorable evening – night after night.
Amy Albert
Board President, The Buttonwood Tree