Donations sought for children's theater

To The Eagle:

My name is Shawn Deal and I need your help. At this moment there is to be no Missoula Childrens Theatre coming to our school district this year. Unfortunately, the funding for this wonderful program does not exist for this year. Hopefully, this is only a one year problem.

For the past 20 years, The Missoula Children’s Theatre has given our school district a much needed drama program. Not only have they put on a play in the course of a week, they also come in to teach classes at the grade and middle schools. I have had the privilege of working as the parent volunteer for the Missoula Children’s Theatre for the last five years along with the teacher volunteer, Tina Merz.

For those of you from this area, you may have been a part of this program yourselves. We have close to 70 participants every year. These students come from all three schools. It is one of the most anticipated programs we have in our school district all year. Starting in September, Tina and I are beseeched with questions on when the play is and which it will be. For many of the students involved, this is their favorite week of school.

Not to beat around the bush, we need to raise $2,500 to make this happen. We see so many positives come from the participants in this program that we don’t want to let it pass by this year because of funding. So we are trying to reach out to the community for help. Any donation you can make would be appreciated by everyone involved, no matter how big, no matter how small.

All monies can be sent to J.A. Wendt with checks made out to the PTO.

I cannot say strongly enough, how important I feel this program is and how many benefits I see among the students who participate. I would personally hate to see this long tradition of having Missoula Children’s Theatre of coming to our community come to an end.

Thank you for taking time to read my letter.

Shawn Deal

Cathlamet