Page 110 - San Angelo

members of the community.

The SACB provides outstanding dance education, but they are assiduous in their efforts to maintain affordable tuition for the dancers and their families. They offer talent-based summer scholarships through the Templeton Scholarship Fund, as well as year-round need-based scholarships to students through the SACB Scholarship Fund. The SACB and Bridgeman also work diligently at fund raising, grant writing, and other opportunities arise to help offset costs.

In addition to the regular costs of

maintaining a dance studio and producing shows, the SACB brings in guest dancers and choreographers, which relies heavily on grant funding as well.

“Every year it depends how many guests we bring in. This year we had seven come in for the frst show. I’m a big advocate for guests. It is really good for the kids to have that kind of exposure. We’ve had guests from the American Ballet Theatre, Ballet Austin, and Richmond Ballet among others. Basically, anywhere that I have connections, we bring in dancers from those companies,”

Bridgeman explains.

Traditionally, SACB has fve shows a year; the Nutcracker being the consistent program produced annually. With those fve shows comes an exorbitant need for volunteers.

“We having a growing board that’s at ten people now and roughly thirty volunteers on our guild, but our parents and supporters are amazing as well. I feel like we never have less than ffty people volunteering at any given time.” The number of volunteers isn’t the only group growing. In the six years Bridgeman

Bridgeman emphasized that steady growth is great to a certain point, but she still wants to maintain those relationships and assure every student receives exceptional training.