Eyes and Wings Scholarship Fund

The mission of Ballet Esprit's EYES and WINGS Scholarship Fund is to bridge the financial gap for economically challenged families, giving talented Intensive Division Students the tuition assistance needed to reach their highest potential each year. We need your assistance to meet our $6,000 campaign goal for 2023; giving up to three dance scholars the opportunity to train year round.

Gifts, otherwise known as wings, can be of any size can be made through the Ballet Esprit Dance Studio Pro platform. All donors will receive links to view our most recent productions, LAND at Stove Works Gallery October 14th-21st with our adult company, Ballet Esprit Collective. Find them along with the student body in the Alter-Nut December 17th at Lookout Lake, our yearly FUNdraiser.

For everyone who gives over $50 to the Eyes and Wings Scholarship Fund, you will also receive an eco-friendly gift along with a hand-written thank you note from the Director Sarah Yvonne, a link to our 2020 ALTER-Nut Film and a single class pass to use in 2024 ($20 value).

Those who give over $100 will receive that above and a Ballet Esprit logo t-shirt ($35 value) and a link to The Plumbline Project 2021 Summer Dance Intensive including Vivaldi’s Summer Finale, with new choreographic works by Aaron Allen Jr., Brian Gephart, Louie Marin Howard and Melissa Miller.

Donors over $250, a dancer from Ballet Esprit Youth Ensemble will create a WINGS DANCE, “thank you dance" based on your name to post on our social media as an extra special thank you for your contribution along with that listed above.

Donors over $500 along with everything mentioned above, will also receive a full-access password to our Ballet Esprit Performance Repertoire Filmography; a key to the vault, with unpublished films of The Plumbline Project Summer Dance Intensive Performance at the Hunter Museum of American Art, highlighting work by Aaron Allen Jr., Bryan Gephart, Louie Marin Howard, Monica Ellison along with resident choreographer, Melissa Miller and her separate works, APOPHIS&ELISE and The F WORD; performed by herself, alongside Director and Founder, Sarah Yvonne; debuting company dancer, Louie Marin-Howard.

Your donation will directly support members of our Youth Ensemble ages 8 - 18 and Intensive Division students giving at least 4 days a week to their dance education at Ballet Esprit. The Scholarship Fund will provide the wings needed to keep these young aspiring dancers soaring towards their goals as thriving artists.

For instance, the Winter Intensive, mornings Dec 28 - 31, 2023. This concentrated time will be spent in house with enrolled students from the Enrichment Division and Intensive Divisions, ages 12+. These four days spent in technique class and rehearsals will provide our Youth Ensemble with community outreach material for 2023. The cost is $200 per student. Typical tuition cost for one year of training as an Intensive Student is anywhere from $1500 - $4000; along with pointe shoes (around $100 per pair) 10 - 15 pairs per year in the advanced levels, this journey becomes an investment. A gift. One that brought us to this path as well. We wouldn’t be where we are today without the eyes and wings of Ms. Yvonne's late grandmother, Sallie Yvonne Darling who passed away, Sept. 6, 2021. Let this be an extension of her wings!