A large portion of our revenue each year is ticket and subscriptions from our concert patrons. The Symphony is only able to continue, especially in trying times like these, with the support of generous donors like you. There are many ways you can help us out:
From our Board President, David Leehey:
December 2021
To all patrons of the Symphony,
It has been another eventful year, some of which many of us would as soon forget, but some of which we trust was joyful and memorable. At this time, we can definitely see light at the end of the tunnel of the pandemic. We are all very grateful for your continued support of the Symphony during these troubling times and in particular your understanding and compliance with our vaccination policy meant to keep everyone safe and able to once again enjoy live music together.
We are asking that you include The Symphony of Oak Park & River Forest in your end-of-year giving plans. With your generous support we are able to keep our ticket prices low and continue our Youth Initiative Programs: String Internships, our Annual Concerto Competition, and all students through college admitted free. We, of course, hope that you will also support the Symphony by once again coming to the concerts performed by our award-winning orchestra in beautiful acoustically- splendid Concordia Chapel of Our Lord. Nothing replaces live music!
Donations can be made on our website (www.symphonyoprf.org) on the Donate page, or in the form of a check mailed to Symphony of Oak Park & River Forest, PO Box 3564, Oak Park, IL 60303. We can accept funds from Required Minimum Distributions from your retirement accounts if you choose that tax-advantaged method of donation. There will also be envelopes in the program books at this Sunday’s concert. No donation is too small!
With best wishes for the season, on behalf of the Symphony Board and Orchestra,
David J. Leehey Board President
Volunteer
As a not-for-profit organization, volunteers are the backbone of the organization. Volunteering is a wonderful way of donating a portion of your time and your expertise to give back to your community. As a volunteer you will be behind the scenes and experience the day to day operations and be a part of a vibrant arts organization.
Your volunteering can make an important contribution. The Symphony of Oak Park & River Forest welcomes those interested in volunteering their time and talents to contact the symphony. Let us know your preference and we’ll forward it along to the appropriate contact!
From our Board President, David Leehey:
Our January concert was one of the best I have heard by S/OP&RF. The performances were very good from a technical standpoint, but more importantly they were uplifting and intensely musical. The Mahler 4 was the best performance of that work we have done to date. Naturally, much credit goes to Maurice and Nathalie, but the players made the performance memorable. As an audience member told me after the concert, the Symphony just keeps getting better and better.
Making our Symphony better and better requires a lot of hard work at rehearsals and at board meetings, but it also requires sufficient funding to keep the organization running strong. I now must share some bad news with you. Our major donor for the past 15 years has informed us that they will not be able to support us this year. Naturally, we will do what we can to try to obtain funding from them in future years. In addition, our second largest donor has informed us that they likely will not be able to continue to support us because we are a community orchestra, and their board now wants to fund only professional orchestras. Loss of funds from these two sources will be a major blow to the Symphony.
The Board has been diligently seeking other sources of funding. In particular, in conjunction with Oak Park Area Arts Council (OPAAC), we have entered into collaboration with five other musical associations in the OPRF area to try to combine our efforts in fundraising. If this initiative is successful, we plan to combine forces in organizing fundraising events and hire a fundraising professional to work on behalf of all of us. Cheryl Flinn, a long-time member of the violin section and our Board Treasurer, has spearheaded this and many other initiatives to help the Symphony.
However, this collaboration is in its very early stages, and we are in need of funds now. Some of you have generously donated to us in the past, for which we are very grateful, and we are hoping that you can do so again in the near future. If you have not previously donated, this would be an excellent time to consider it.
Options include sending a check to the Symphony (PO Box 3564, Oak Park, IL 60303-3564) or donating electronically on our secure website. We also have a Vanguard account that can accept stocks and stock dividends and transfers of funds from other accounts, as well as checks. Some tax-savings options include donating appreciated stock or, for those of you at retirement age, required minimum distributions (RMDs) from IRAs. Our treasurer Cheryl Flinn or I will be happy to assist you if you choose to donate into our Vanguard account.
One more request – if you think that it might be possible to obtain a donation from your place of work or if you have friends or acquaintances who might be willing to donate, please pass that information along to us as well.
Thank you very much for whatever you can do to support your Symphony!
David
The Symphony of Oak Park River Forest 