The Ithaca Rotary Club and Savage Club support their communities through diverse initiatives, focusing on arts and broader community needs respectively. This article highlights their impact, from funding visual art projects like the Underground Railroad Mural to supporting performing arts groups such as the Hangar Theatre and Triphammer Arts. They facilitate inclusive arts experiences, including equipment for hearing-impaired audiences and arts-science partnerships for children's education. LAFF Gazette will detail their extensive community contributions.
The Ithaca Rotary Club and the Savage Club of Ithaca each embraces different missions, but we share our love for our communities. Each organization provides support for people and organizations that change our community, and show what’s possible. The Savage Club’s focus is particularly on projects related to music or performance; the Rotary’s mission is broader, to include a remarkable range of needs, including the arts.
This is “What We Support: #1”, the first in a series of posts about why we fundraise through LAFF, and how the communities in our area benefit. We’re going to highlight some areas of need and share how both clubs have changed people’s abilities to improve and enrich our children, our older folks, and many many more.
“What We Support #1” is to share how our help has made a difference in the arts; especially in supporting young folks who crave exploration and experience in the arts, and helping groups use the arts to involve and excite communities. Here is just a sample of the agencies we’ve helped:
Community visual art projects that Rotary supported included the Underground Railroad Mural on Green Street, and the Multicultural Resource Center to create outdoor art called “Portals for Peace”.
Performing arts all over the county excelled, with a little help from us. It’s a long list, and the following are just a part of it. We’re so proud we are able to support groups like the Civic Ensemble, the Fall Creek Brass Band, the Hangar Theatre, Running to Places, Vitamin L, Triphammer Arts, the Next Generation and many more.
What were the requests for? Groups asked for help with things like getting equipment for hearing impaired audience members, helping to provide theatre training for kids online during COVID, and helping partnerships happen between arts groups and science and technology groups, to enrich kids’ learning. The Savage Club prioritized dedicated and highly skilled performing ensembles like the Cayuga Vocal Ensemble, the Cornell University Chorus, and Opera Ithaca. Savage Club also supported new presenting organizations on the scene, like Triphammer Arts.
The LAFF Gazette will include a complete list of those who have received support from the Savage Club or Ithaca Rotary, and next month we’ll feature grants made throughout the county for community needs.