I was recently asked by a friend to discuss what I did in Honduras and so I decided to put it here on my BLOG. You can also get a good feel for the program by visiting our website: www.handstohonduras.org.

Back in January of 2004, Dorrice and I went on a Rotary Club-sponsored trip to Tela, Honduras. The program was started in response to the ravages of Hurricane Mitch back in 1997. It had begun as humanitarian aid and then evolved into one which ostensibly built schools and school classrooms. Our teams went down and supplied the labor and funds to build these schools and we worked like Trojans. In Honduras there is only limited mechanical equipment so much of the work must be done manually. This is particularly hard when mixing cement and concrete, carrying and lifting it. You can’t believe how much cement goes into building a cement block building.

The program called for working from 8-4 or 5 when we would return to a moderate Honduran hotel on the beach, where we often washed off the grime in the ocean. It was a wonderful finish to hard days.

In 2005 the person running the program almost single-handedly, moved from Vermont to Texas and decided to take the next year off. I convinced a number of other volunteers that the program might not have the momentum to carry on if we quit for a year, so I convinced the organizer to let me run it and turn it over to him the next year. Since I knew few of the details, I formed a group to help me and we organized the whole program, where heretofore it was run by the seat of the pants. We established a formalized system for the stating of requirements and a provision for sustainability and community responsibility. It was quite successful and the number of volunteers rose to more than ninety. It was quite a job organizing it all, but we accomplished an enormous amount and when my predecessor came back, he told us to keep the program. He was going off to start over somewhere else. That was not what I was expecting, but since I was holding the bag, we continued along, growing ever more successful.

The program raised its own funds, often getting some funding from Rotary Clubs. Our volunteers, which normally run around 75-85, pay their own way, raise funds, and work like mad for one or two weeks. The program has further evolved into more of a community-to-community effort where we do not altogether limit our activities to schools. In the last few years we have worked on and improved a police barracks (it was atrocious before with no water), a childcare center, numerous schools, health clinics, and adult education. We have built and provide essential management and support for a fully operational Rehabilitation Center – the only one in the region. We’ve worked on libraries, we have helped to establish the first E-911 program in the country, provided lots and lots of medical programs and screening, helped provide and support an ambulance, and numerous other projects.

I effectively passed the organization over to a full Directing Committee three years ago, but remain on it and active with Dorrice. We go every year and I have been there a few more times – seven I think. It’s great fun, the volunteers are a wonderful group of people and we all get an enormous sense of satisfaction from working on this.

Vermont Mozart Festival Reaches $38,860 in Match

I'm very happy to inform my readers that the matching challenge of $35,000 was met and surpassed. As of 4PM today (August 26), the Vermont Mozart Festival had raised $38,860.55. That's great for 15 days of fundraising! There is still a long way to go to go from ensuring next year's programs to a point were the Festival will thrive through bad summers. Next year's program was validated at last night's Board of DIrectors meeting. It will feature Chopin's music because it is his 200th anniversary of his birth. Mozart also figures strongly in the programming.

More Detail on Vermont Mozart Festival's Plight

This week’s Channel 3 (WCAX) announcement that the Vermont Mozart Festival, after 36 years, may have presented its final concert caught most listeners by surprise. How can it be that one of Vermont’s finest musical treasures and one of our nation’s premier summer music festivals is forced to end? Why?

What the Festival has experienced is a virtual tsunami of confluent problems: 1) for the second successive year weather has reduced ticket sales dramatically, a factor that can’t easily be overcome by a concert series that depends largely on the appeal of outdoor performances; 2) a serious economic downturn that has reduced ticket purchases as well as individual and corporate giving dramatically; and 3) the ever-present reality that ticket sales, in the best of years, represent only 40% of the funds needed to pay all the costs involved in producing each year’s Festival. So, here we are at the end of a third year of declining attendance and revenue. The consequence is that we now face a $330,000 cash shortfall. Clearly, we can not write contracts for 2010 without the money needed to back them up. If we were to write contracts for 2010 and failed to meet them we could, in addition to the debt, be subject to legal action.

I think it is important to affirm here that the day to day administration of the Festival is not responsible for this unhappy situation. The Festival officers, paid and volunteer, have been working hard to counter these increasingly difficult financial realities, but this combination of three major events was more than we could anticipate or overcome. You should know, too, that we have not given up, but we do not believe that it is our decision to ‘scuttle the ship.’ The Festival Board should not decide whether the Festival ends now or continues into an undetermined future. You, the people who love good music, buy tickets and make the contributions should make that decision. In reality, this is an election, and you are the voter.

Each of us can vote for or against by responding to this letter with a contribution that tells the Board your vote is to continue the Festival. If we combine our best efforts, as individuals and as corporations, we can raise the $330,000 we need to eliminate our debt. We need to complete this challenge by November 15 in order to know whether to begin negotiations for next year.

Raising $330,000 by November 15 is not an impossible task. If 330 of us will contribute $1,000 (in addition to what many of us already have contributed) we will reach our goal. Or, 1,000 of us could reach the needed goal by making an additional gift of $330. Each of us knows how much we can give in an emergency, and this certainly is an emergency for the Mozart Festival. Only you can decide how important the Mozart Festival is to you, your family, and our entire state community. Only you can help to keep this musical gem alive and well in Vermont. Your contribution is your vote!

In order to guarantee the Festival’s future, please respond with your contribution not later than November 15. You can do it quickly and easily at my First Giving page at www.firstgiving.com.johnhammeriii. If you have questions and/or suggestions, please call or e-mail at 802 425-4065 or HomeportVT@gmavt.net. Thank you!

Help Ensure a Vermont Mozart Festival 2010 Season

I am Immediate Past President of the Vermont Mozart Festival and am helping the present president to raise a large sum of money in order to ensure the existence of the Festival and to prepare for the 2010 summer season. Pleas read below to see what has happened.

The Vermont Mozart Festival must be counted as one of America’s most unique musical festivals. No other festival presents greater variety with nineteen individual concerts spread over three short weeks in as many as eleven different locations. It follows the traditional model of European festivals, hosting a series of interrelated classical events in a variety of gorgeous settings. Most of these locations are outdoors. The music is performed by professional musicians and soloists drawn from regional, national, and international sources.

The Vermont Mozart Festival has successfully mounted 36 seasons of outdoor-oriented concerts, but two successive years of rainy weather and a serious economic downturn have created a serious financial shortfall. Ticket sales account for just over 40% of the budget, and contributions have dramatically lagged those of previous years. Even with a reduced budget for the 2009 season, there is a $330,000 shortfall.

The Board of Directors have every intention of making it through to the 2010 summer season, but funds must be found to handle the large shortfall before October, 2009.

Therefore, supporters are invited to contribute what they feel they can to help the Vermont Mozart Festival become solvent. Contributed funds are treated as tax free within the laws of the US International Revenue Service.

The future of the Vermont Mozart Festival rests in the hands of the community it serves and those who value excellent musical concerts in the Green Mountain State.