Extraordinary Give: Increase impact of your EPAC donation Friday

Lancaster County’s Extraordinary Give event takes place this Friday. It’s an EXTREMELY important day for the Ephrata Performing Arts Center, and it’s easy to understand why.

A recent editorial in the Intelligencer Journal/LancasterNew Era called the Ephrata Performing Arts Center “a theater that consistently punches far above its weight.” In other words, EPAC may be a nonprofit, community theater, but it presents high-quality, visionary work that always has audiences buzzing.

That editorial writer knows what everyone who comes to see the musicals and plays presented at the Sharadin Bigler Theatre knows: EPAC truly lives its mission of producing “THEATER THAT MATTERS,” show after show, year in and year out.

Producing theater you can’t see anywhere else in the area takes the kind of creativity that burns in the staff, creative teams, actors, stage managers, crew members, technical artists and various volunteers who put it all together and place it before the audience year-round.

But it also takes money. Frankly, it’s hard for artists to talk about money, and to ask for money. But the fact is that EPAC needs funds to continue to entertain you, to move you, to make you laugh and to make you think with the plays and musicals the EPAC family works so hard to bring to you.

Through the Extraordinary Give, the Lancaster County Foundation offers a date and place for hundreds of area nonprofits to earn donations, from midnight to 11:59 a.m. on November 22. As one of those nonprofits, EPAC is then eligible to receive part of an ADDITIONAL POOL OF MATCHING FUNDS, BASED ON HOW MUCH IS DONATED TO US ON FRIDAY.  If we earn 1 percent of the total donations given to all organizations that day, we’ll receive an additional 1 percent of that pool of matching money.

So, on that day of days, the more money you give, the more money EPAC gets toward fulfilling its mission as an arts organization.

Do you see why that day is SO VERY IMPORTANT to this theater? It’s not often that your donation to EPAC can be instantly multiplied in its impact! The Extraordinary Give offers you that opportunity.

So, please set aside a few moments this Friday, Nov. 22 – you have 24 hours in which to schedule those moments! – to make at least the minimum donation of $25 to EPAC through the Extraordinary Give. We need your help, and EPAC will be so thankful, blessed and appreciative to have your support that day!!

Please bookmark the EPAC donation page, so you’ll be all ready for the event on Friday.

After you make your donation, please follow our progress on the Extraordinary Give leaderboard all day long, and follow our progress on Facebook, Twitter and other social media that day.

In the end, YOU will be the beneficiary, since the money EPAC earns will go toward producing all the shows you’ll enjoy here, and maintaining the Sharadin Bigler Theatre so you can watch those shows in comfort.

Thank you, in advance, from the whole EPAC family!

-- by Merv Wright, EPAC fan and volunteer