Kate Shanaphy-Maingot/Program Director/Gifford Academy for Performing Arts we learn about the excitement in the home stretch for the finals set for

1. We’ve Got Talent! is in it’s first year but you couldn’t tell by the amount of auditions and seriously impressive contestants applied for their chance to get on a real stage and show their star power! This community-wide celebration of the performing arts—brings together youth and adults, professionals and emerging artists, and audiences from across the Treasure Coast around one shared stage.
2. Their chance, your vote and all of us rooting for them – what could be better? Maybe the fact that all of this, our sponsors, our venue, our contestants, our judges – all of it benefits Gifford Academy for Performing Arts.  GAPA has been providing after-school performing arts education for 23 years— and all those years…without a permanent home. We are now building that home on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, adjacent to Gifford Middle School.
3. The demand for GAPA has grown dramatically. Four years ago, when I began working alongside Casey Lunceford, the Academy averaged approximately 21 students; today, we are serving more than 100 young people every week.
4. We are only halfway to our capital goal. The new GAPA facility represents more than a building—it means rehearsal rooms, teaching space, performance opportunities and a permanent cultural home for generations of young artists.
5. We’ve Got Talent! was created as an innovative fundraising model for the arts. Rather than spending enormous sums producing a traditional gala, we are creating revenue by doing exactly what our mission calls us to do: putting performers onstage and celebrating talent.
6. The event expands GAPA’s mission beyond our own students. We are creating a platform for performing artists throughout the community—singers, dancers, musicians, actors, comedians and other live performers—to be seen, supported and rewarded.
7. It turns fundraising into participation. Contestants perform, audiences attend, businesses sponsor, judges volunteer their expertise, media partners amplify the message—and the community becomes part of building GAPA’s future.                 We’ve Got Talent! allows us to raise money through the mission itself—celebrating extraordinary performers today while creating the classrooms, stages and opportunities that will develop extraordinary performers tomorrow

3850 20th Street, Unit #6

Vero Beach, FL 32960

772-213-3007

The post We’ve Got Talent! appeared first on The Treasure Coast Insider.