Frequently Asked Questions: Building Bridges Share the Love Project
Click Here to read more about the Project's mission statement, objectives and other events and commissions included in the Project.
What is the Share the Love Project?
The Share the Love Project is a call for ordinary individuals to become sponsors of the arts. It is a way that they can include dance, music and handmade creations into their own special events and at the same time contribute to a bigger network of public concerts, television and radio shows that will benefit the public.
Why is the Share the Love Project important?
The Share the Love Project encourages ordinary individuals to put the arts in the heart of their significant events. Everyday people don’t realize that they have the power to heal the world with simple things they can do. We, as individuals sometimes become dependent upon big organizations to make important decisions for us and we don’t look to what decisions we make ourselves that can affect our community for good.
The Share the Love Project encourages us to look at ourselves as individuals and to our local artists and artisans through different eyes. What is it that local artists do for us as a community? They give us hope, perspective and vision. They help us to find meaning in our lives and to see ordinary things through extraordinary eyes. When we start to see the world around us through extraordinary eyes, we find that we are happier and more satisfied. And when we are happier and more satisfied, we are more willing to share our love for others through actions of kindness and respect, through service and sacrifice. This makes a difference in our community that affects people of all ages.
How Can Someone Participate in the Share the Love Project?
Let me give you an example of how this could work. Let’s take a ordinary person. They are planning a special event, say a wedding, birthday party, party for business clients or any type of social gathering . If they decide to commission a new song or a choreography for a dance and decide to do it through the Share the Love Project, they become the sponsors of new art. Say they decide to have live musicians to perform the new song at their special event and a sound engineer to record the live performance for later radio broadcast. Say they decide to have a videographer to capture their first dance or the dance they had commissioned to be performed at their event for later inclusion in a music video for public television broadcast. They are commissioning new art, including it in the lives of people significant to them, and making it possible for the public to enjoy the benefits of what they started by commissioning a new song or dance.
How much might this cost an individual?
That depends upon how they decide to plan their event. The people planning the event have the opportunity to make many decisions about their vendors. We want people planning special events to consider using local artisans. Instead of buying clothing from a store, they could decide to have clothing specially designed and handmade for the event. Instead of buying machine manufactured chocolates for their guests, they could buy the local chocloteirs chocolates where each recipie is unique and hand made one day before the event.
These decisions can extend to everything about the event, including the flowers, the set design, the catering. If the planners take the time to incorporate original, handmade, custom designed creations in their event plans, they are supporting local small businesses and artisans who make the community a better place by their personal service. And if they hires a videographer to film these creations, for later inclusion in the Share the Love Project &Eyes on Our Innnovators& TV show on the local cable station, then others can see what local artisans are creating of beauty in their community for special events that they might not otherwise be able to see.
So, let’s reframe the question. How much does the one want to donate to charity? If one becomes part of this project, then one is commissioning local artists to create new things. 100% of what is paid for the event that qualifies is tax deductable. Building Bridges pays the artists to create the work, the artists are part of the event and after the event what was created benefits the public. A commission might be anywhere from $500 to $50,000. It just depends upon how unique, original and special one decides to make one's wedding and what music, dance, and handmade creations one wants to be part of it.
How Does the Public Benefit?
The public is enriched by the creations of local artists. The Share the Love Project will produce concerts, live dance shows, television and radio broadcasts featuring the music, dance and artistic creations that are commissioned during the year by individuals. For example, 20 individuals might commission new dances for their wedding or for performances as their special events. These choreographies are then made available to dance students who will perform them in a Ballroom Dance Showcase in the fall. Say for example 20 new songs are created. These will be performed by local professional musicians at a live concert for television broadcast in the Fall. So each individual is helping to create a small piece of a bigger project. And the public gets the opportunity to participate in great events that are the culmination of many artists contributions.