Tag Archives: Wenger Foundation

The Vintage Band Festival Fund

As a result of two recent extraordinary donations, the Vintage Band Festival board of directors has launched The Vintage Band Festival Fund. This fund will part of the Northfield Area Fund, a community fund that is under the auspices of a local non-profit organization called Northfield Shares.

Our intent is for the Vintage Band Festival Fund ( VBF Fund) to be a place where donors may wish to give a legacy gift to help insure that Vintage Band Festival will be able to present live brass and wind band music many years into the future. Our organization will continue to fundraise annually to support the next scheduled festival, but we also need to fundraise with a longer timeline in mind.

Legacy gifts can be made using retirement plan assets. They can also be part of a trust or a named beneficiary when planning for one’s estate. They can simply be one-time gifts to honor someone’s memory.

We are humbled and extremely grateful to board member Jan Stevens for her generous gift that has ennabled the VBF Fund to be created. We also wish to acknowledge the Wenger Foundation for their timely gift that has effectively doubled  the size of the VBF Fund at its launch.

Donations to the Vintage Band Festival Fund can be made online by clicking on this link:

Our Community Funds

VBF on the radio: Tuba Christmas & the VBF Fund

As a result of two recent extraordinary donations, the Vintage Band Festival board of directors has launched the Vintage Band Festival Fund. This fund will part of the Northfield Area Fund, a community fund that is under the auspices of a local non-profit organization called Northfield Shares.

Our intent is for the Vintage Band Festival Fund ( VBF Fund) to be a place where donors may wish to give a legacy gift to help insure that Vintage Band Festival will be able to present live brass and wind band music many years into the future. Our organization will continue to fundraise annually to support the next scheduled festival, but we also need to fundraise with a longer timeline in mind.

We are humbled and extremely grateful to board member Jan Stevens for her generous gift of $25,000 that has enabled the VBF Fund to be created. We also wish to acknowledge the Wenger Foundation for their timely gift of $20,000 that will nearly double the size of the VBF Fund. Anyone wishing to donate to the VBF Fund can send a check payable to Northfield Shares (with “Vintage Band Festival Fund” on the memo line) and send it to Northfield Shares, 205 Water Street South, Northfield, MN 55057. There will be an online option soon for anyone wishing to use a credit card.

Jan and two other VBF board members were recently featured on the Art Zany: Radio for the Imagination show on the local station 95.1 The One KYMN Radio talking about the VBF Fund and the upcoming 2023 edition of Tuba Christmas in Northfield on Saturday, December 2. The VBF segment starts at about 35:30:00 in the recording.

ArtZany! Fine Arts Boosters Fundraiser and Vintage Band Festival, 11-17-23

Three Links Care Center returns as a Vintage Band Festival Stage Sponsor in 2022

 

Sponsorships are vitally important to the success of Vintage Band Festival 2022. We want to welcome back Three Links Care Center as a Stage Sponsor for VBF 2022 and Hogan Brothers as a Day Sponsor. Pam Tidona, Marketing Manager at Three Links and Greg Heymans, Proprietor of Hogan Bros., are both enthusiastic supporters of Vintage Band Festival. Greg has told us that Vintage Band Festival weekend is typically his best weekend of the year!

Sponsorship benefits accrue at various levels, including frequent publicity on VBF social media, prominent recognition on banners and signs at the performance venues and in the official Vintage Band Festival program and an invitation to an exclusive donor reception just prior to the festival weekend in July.

Sponsorships are open to both businesses, non-profits and individuals. Stage Sponsorships are achieved with a $1,000 donation, Band Sponsorships occur at the $500 level, and Day Sponsors are named with a $250 donation. Donations of $3,000 or more are designated as Festival Sponsors. Festival Sponsors for VBF 2022 are the Wenger Foundation, the Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council, the Minnesota State Arts Board, and JoAnn Polley and Mark Ulmer.

If you would like to learn more about becoming a Vintage Band Festival Sponsor, please contact Jan Stevens, Fundraising Committee Chair, for more information. Jan can be reached at507-244-0500 or janofdundas@gmail.com.

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Wenger support continues for Vintage Band Festival

Christmas came early for Vintage Band Festival in 2021. In late November we received word that the Wenger Foundation awarded the organization $10,000 in support of our 2022 4-day festival, July 28-31 next summer. We are profoundly grateful for the confidence the Wenger family has placed in the VBF mission of wind band music performed in public settings throughout our hometown of Northfield, Minnesota.

The Wenger Corporation produces innovative products for the music education, performing arts and athletic markets. Harry Wenger, Owatonna, Minnesota’s own “Music Man”, founded the Wenger Corporation in in his basement in 1946 and It is celebrating its 75th anniversary in 2021. The Wenger Foundation has been a Vintage Band Festival benefactor since the festival’s founding in 2006.

The Financing of Vintage Band Festival

 

Each Vintage Band Festival event requires financial support from various funding sources in order to be produced. Our organization is a non-profit corporation that relies on grants, sponsorships, and donations from private individuals and businesses to underwrite our expenses.

GRANT AWARDS

As we ramp up preparations for Vintage Band Festival on July 31, 2021, we want to take a moment to thank our loyal and continuing supporters in the granting community. We have been fortunate to receive assistance multiple times from Wenger Foundation, the Minnesota State Arts Board (MSAB), and the Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council (SEMAC). These wonderful arts supporters have been generous not only to Vintage Band Festival, but also to a number of our performing ensembles as well. In recent years, funds granted by both MSAB and SEMAC are the direct result of dollars provided by Minnesota taxpayers through the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment enacted by the Minnesota State Legislature in 2008. Please thank your representatives for this marvelous and thoughtful legislation!

SPONSORSHPS

In 2021, we have sponsorship opportunities for organizations to assist us with the financial needs of the festival. The top level of sponsorship is the Stage Sponsor. We’re pleased to announce that both the Northfield Rotary Club and the Northfield News have agreed to be Stage Sponsors of Vintage Band Festival 2021. Thanks to both of these fine partners for their support this year and in years past.

   

LEGACY GIFTS

2021 is the 16th year of Vintage Band Festival’s life. During that time we have established a track record of great performances, a collaborative spirit, and many memories for our performers and our audience. We have started to see our friends respond to this work in wonderful ways.

In the past 12 months, Vintage Band Festival has received nearly $10,000 in legacy gifts from two longtime supporters of the festival. Both of these donors have requested anonymity, but we wanted to let our audience know how incredibly grateful we are for this recognition and for their generosity. One of the gifts came from a musician family in one of our performing ensembles and the other was inspired by the work of one of our ardent volunteers. In each case, the donor expressed gratitude for the joy that Vintage Band Festival has brought to their lives and the hope that this experience will continue for many years to come.

HOW ABOUT YOU?

If you are considering becoming a 2021 Stage Sponsor ($1,000) or a 2021 Band Sponsor ($500), we’d love to hear from you soon so that we can include your name in all of our promotion and marketing activities. If you are considering a legacy gift to Vintage Band Festival or a 2021 sponsorship, please contact our Fundraising Committee at vintagebandfestival@gmail.com. Thank you and hope to see you in Northfield, MN on July 31! The music starts at 9:30 am.

For continuing updates about Vintage Band Festival, visit our website at www.vintagebandfestival.org and follow us on Facebook at Vintage Band Festival.

Vintage Band Festival is Back!

Have you heard the news??

Vintage Band Festival 2021 will take place July 31, 2021. Exactly 425 days will have elapsed since VBF’s last public event: the Swing into Leap Year Dance on February 29, 2020. It’s been a long time coming. With the lifting of restrictions by the Governor’s office a couple of weeks ago, it looks like our outdoor event in Bridge Square can be held safely.

We’re going to have a great lineup for 12 hours of brass band enjoyment. The evening schedule is set. At 5:30 on the Wenger Showmobile Stage we’ll have Southside Aces, a fantastic Twin Cities jazz ensemble led by Tony Baluff on clarinet. Copper Street Brass will take the stage at 6:45 and the evening will finish with the sounds of the Roseville Big Band. Copper Street Brass has appeared at every Vintage Band Festival since 2006, but the Roseville Big Band will be making its debut with us. Bring your dancing shoes!

We’ll announce the rest of the lineup just as soon as we get confirmations from everyone. Check back often at the VBF website for  the rest of the day’s schedule and other festival details.

Riverwalk Market Fair, an open-air bazaar featuring fresh produce vendors and artisans of all sorts, will again be sharing Bridge Square with Vintage Band Festival. This collaboration has been taking place for a number of years now and we love the synergy that results from the co-mingling of our audiences!

Thanks to our spring donors who stepped up during Spring Forward MN in May. We have a goal to raise $5,000 before the July festival and we’re 30% there following the May fund drive. If you can help us with a gift in any amount, please visit www.vintagebandfestival.org and click on the green “Donate” button.

This past year has been difficult for everyone and we’re looking forward to seeing all of you again in person. If you haven’t gotten a COVID-19 vaccination yet, please do so at your earliest opportunity. The best way to reduce the risk of virus transmission for everyone is for people to be fully vaccinated.

Vintage Band Festival awarded $10,000 SEMAC grant

On May 21, 2019, the Board of Directors of the Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council (SEMAC) awarded 42 grants for a total of $269,205 in funding to applicants throughout southeastern Minnesota. This included 24 Arts & Cultural Heritage grants for $217,935, nine Presenter/Production Assistance grants for $25,520, and nine Small Towns/Rural Areas grants for $25,750.

In this grant cycle, Vintage Band Festival received a $10,000 Arts and Cultural Heritage grant for Vintage Band Festival 2019. We are thrilled to make this announcement and want to thank our grant writer, Board member Joy Riggs. This is not the first successful grant application that Joy has written for us and we are so grateful for her skill and dedication to this effort. Previous grants awarded to Vintage Band Festival 2019 were from the Wenger Foundation and the Minnesota State Arts Board.

Vintage Band Festival 2019 will take place in Northfield, Minnesota and surrounding communities August 1-4, 2019. Follow this link to find the complete daily schedule at the two outdoor stages and a roster of the participating bands.

Vintage Band Festival Spring Fund Drive

It’s time for our annual spring fund drive here at Vintage Band Festival. The generous and loyal financial support from businesses, foundations and individuals like you continues to make it possible for us to present such amazing musicians and ensembles and not charge admission. We are fortunate to have the Wenger Foundation and the Minnesota State Arts Board as our principal funders, but their support accounts for just 40% of our $100,000 budget for 2019. The rest will need to come from other grants, and businesses and individuals such as you.

We are incredibly excited for Vintage Band Festival 2019. The roster we have assembled consists of three international groups, seven domestic ensembles from outside Minnesota and an amazing array of Minnesota bands from around the state. This year there will be 11 bands that have never performed at Vintage Band Festival before, two of which are from Europe.

Thursday evening, August 1, the headliners will be Mariachi Mi Tierra and McNasty Brass Band. Friday night we welcome back Copper Street Brass and then we’ll have a victory dance with Bend in the River Big Band. Saturday night will feature Southside Aces and Hornucopia: A Tribute to Horn Bands in the Rock Era.

There will be a number of living history bands with us this year, some that are familiar and several that are new. We will have the 1st Brigade Band from Watertown, Wisconsin, Newberry’s Victorian Cornet Band, and the Independent Silver Band from Mount Vernon, Illinois. New to Vintage Band Festival in 2019 will be the 1st Nebraska Volunteers Brass Band, Arizona’s Territorial Brass and the Imperial Cornet Band from Baltimore, Maryland.

Check the VBF website often for the complete schedule and breaking news.

The goal for our 2019 spring fund drive is $20,000. Currently, we have raised $9,650. If you have recently made a gift to Vintage Band Festival, our sincere thanks! If it’s been awhile, won’t you please consider a gift at this time? A successful spring fund drive outcome is essential to the success of our summer festival. A gift in any amount is always welcome, but gifts of $100 or more are critically important right now. Donors are featured prominently in the festival program and onsite at the Bridge Square Main Stage. In addition, we will be hosting an exclusive donor reception in July, just before the festival begins.

If you are donating by check, send your gift to:
Vintage Band Festival
204 7th St W #130
Northfield, MN 55057

If you want to make your gift with a credit card, go to www.vintagebandfestival.org and click on the big green “Donate” button.