This upcoming Saturday our Board and staff will meet together for an extended time to project ways of guiding, governing and funding our agency for the 2010-2011 term. In this meeting we will transition to a newly-constituted Board of Directors and adopt a revised budget plan that outlines what is needed to keep our programs going. Of course, we then will strategize on how to bring in the dollars needed to fund the budget we approve. It promises to be a somewhat stormy, invigorating exercise. Among the new talent joining the ranks of our Directors we count Broad and Cassel designee Stacey Prince + Ron Oats + M&S Enterprises designee Mark Glover + Kimberly Suarez + JCB Construction designee Priscilla Robinson + Denise Johnson-Allen. From the staffing end, we will be joined by Edward Washington II, who is soon to be our new Music and Education Director.
Today is the start of the month of June, when we perennially urge all our supporters who are unable to make major gifts to participate as Funding Friends instead. This is the precise moment when we need all our quiet partners to click the Donate botton of our homepage and arrange to make an affordable gift of $25.00 or $50.00 to help us stay afloat. From a cashflow standpoint we are dormant, and our coffers are almost entirely dry. Funding Friends will make the difference to see us through the storminess of these days to a successful close of the fiscal year. If you value what we stand for and what we do, I implore you to please help.
Today also marks the start of another hurricane season. As I write, the occasional clap of thunder is rolling overhead, and raindrops are softly pelting the roof and windows of my tiny home. This evening I feel secure and safe; unlike two nights ago when, momentarily despondent at being ill and struck belatedly by the recent death of Edna Hargrett-Thrower, I cried like an infant for a bit. Tears were a great release, so all is well with me again. I know likewise that, by God’s grace, all will be well for the “Negro Spiritual” Scholarship Foundation after the current storm has passed by. We move on and grow from every test. Life is just that way, and I love the living of it!
In earnest,
Rudi Cleare
