September 1, 2004

To The Lawrence City Commission,

The Lawrence Street Dance Committee Ltd., a local private not for profit organization, requests $3000.00  (three thousand) from the City of Lawrence to help fund a free outdoor dance to be held in South Park the evening of Saturday, September 18, 2004.  This free dance will be on the evening of the Sesquicentennial Parade and Festival in South Park for the purpose of allowing the community to further celebrate Lawrence’s 150^th Birthday.

The Lawrence Street Dance Committee Ltd. is composed of members of the Lawrence Sesquicentennial Commission who have been planning for over a year  the Sesquicentennial Birthday Party Festival activities for September 18 in South Park.  From the beginning of our involvement in planning Sesquicentennial activities we have looked at the Birthday Party Festival as having two components: daytime children’s activities including birthday cake, free pony rides and a variety of games and an evening outdoor dance that would appeal to everyone, not just families with kids.  The day’s events were designed to represent the Lawrence of yesteryear, while the night’s event was to celebrate Lawrence today on its 150^th birthday.

In fact, the original announcement asking for volunteers to plan the festival after the parade mentioned a dance as a possible event to include.  We point  this out not to imply that there was anything binding in this announcement but just to note that the idea for a dance was in existence even before our committee was formed.

We felt a dance would be a nice compliment to the daytime family and children activities and for nine months after our formation an evening dance was in all of our plans we submitted to the Sesquicentennial Commission Executive Board. 

But after these many months of planning, the Executive Board informed us that “due to unexpected expenses” they were unable to allow evening activities.  We then brought up the possibility that we may be able to find alternative funding.  They then responded that there were concerns about “security and the Lawrence bar scene”.

Over the years there have been a number of very large crowds gathered downtown without incident as in response to Kansas University’s inclusion in the Final Four, so we know that large numbers of people can come together in Lawrence and enjoy themselves without problems.  We believed it was unfair to withdraw backing for an outdoor dance without any discussion at all of potential problems or solutions. 

The Birthday Party Festival Committee still believed that a dance would be a gift for the community so we decided to put on a dance as a group of private citizens.  We have formed a non-profit corporation and have gained approval from Parks and Recreation to hold this dance in South Park as we had originally planned.   We have lined up Kelley Hunt and Billy Ebeling, two well know hometown musicians, to provide dance music that we know has broad appeal.

The $3000.00 requested will cover only a portion of the costs required to put on this dance.  We have several small sponsors, but the bulk of the funding so far has come out of our pockets.  We are still looking for sponsors and our fundraising requests state that any funds collected in excess of actual expenses will be donated to the Sesquicentennial Point Fund.

The organizers of this dance will make no money.  We have donation of a stage and greatly reduced fees from the musicians.  Expenses are being kept at an absolute minimum and will cover such things as insurance, security and a sound and light system.

We believe that the community is deserving of this dance and ask for your help to make this a memorable evening.

Thank You,

The Lawrence Street Dance Committee Ltd.

Steve Braswell, Director

841-6902

steve@acornwebworks.com