‘Rainbow Lily’ by Ecaterina Leonte, Salt Lake City, Utah, United States.
Finalist, IGPOTY Award 2020. My Modern Met
Yes, you absolutely are!
Because of you, our first ever fundraising campaign achieved its goal of reaching over $2000 in 20 days- and, at the very first step.
This campaign that began on January 5, 2021, was to begin in the Spring of 2020 but it was almost ‘forgotten’ as we all re-positioned ourselves to respond to COVID by mid-March. Surrey Muse, with its featured guests for January-June 2020 session, took a sudden leap from the real life gatherings to virtual. As we know, this learning curve was the least of the problems presented by the year 2020 yet it was a continuity within a disruptive event that we began to experience together as a community of writers and artists, and we still are.
Surrey Muse virtual gatherings are video driven where each month a 1.5 hour program video is created from the video submissions provided by that month’s featured author, poet, artist/performer, an across-genre Open Mic Opener, and 3-5 open mic presentations. This reliance on videos brought forth accessibility issues, and during an email conversation with Dorothy Ellen Palmer, Disabled Writer and Activist, it became apparent that we needed to take steps to make our virtual gatherings more accessible. Dorothy pointed us to Closed Captioning (cc) Surrey Muse videos as a starting point. This was an important step that we could not accomplish without financial support.
We began working on our campaign in December 2020 with Fundraising Coordinator and Social Media Lead Vila Skyspeaks, and the goal to raise $1500-$2000. Since just-after-Christmas-and-New-Year is not exactly the best time of the year to seek donations, and, Surrey Muse Featured Artists are not a group of corporate executives or the most affluent community of artists in North America, we planned a two-step process: make requests from featured guests and close supporters, and then do a go-fund-me. From January 5 to January 25, we received over $2000 in donations ranging from $10-$600. We are elated because not only that this assures a solid start to the new year, the money came with passionate support. View our amazing benefactors here:
surreymuse.wordpress.com/donate
We are grateful to those who sent donations, those who shared information with others, and those who wished us well.
Thank you.
Randeep Purewall, Fauzia Rafique, Vila Skyspeaks, Mariam Zohra
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