Between 2010 and 2013 Dorothee Schack has raised over £11,000——£11,674.75 to date——-in order to help us cover the running costs of our choir, Cor Videns ( The Seeing Heart Choir ). This money has played a vital part in enabling the choir to survive during these last few difficult years and we are most grateful to her for this.
Dorothee teaches music and it is very fitting that she has used music to raise the money that has helped Funvini’s choir to survive. Many of her music students have performed in concerts that have raised money and the Taplow Youth Choir staged a concert that raised £800 in 2011. On December 8th this year they are staging another. Many members of that choir also raised money by carolling at Christmas.
Her family helped too. Her daughter Laura, who plays the basoon and sings, gave money from concerts in which she was involved, and she encouraged her college–Somerville College, Oxford– to support the project. Friedmann, Dorothee’s son, did his bit too. He undertook two sponsored bike rides, one to Paris and one to Southern Italy. Many of her friends gave her donations and so the total grew and grew.
Dorothee had a target of £10,000 and in summer 2013 it was in sight. The family decided to make the final push, in quite a novel way. For their summer holidays they were to visit the USA where they had once lived. They had a marvellous time hiking and back-packing, so how did they raise money for Funvini’s choir? Well, in two ways: wherever they went they told people about the choir project and people gave them donations, but the main thing they did was quite different. When they were planning their trip they decided that instead of hiring a large car, so that the five of them could travel in comfort, they would hire a smaller one and give the money saved to the choir project. True, it would be a tight fit and they would be pretty squashed, but they were unanimous in agreeing to it. So that’s what they did, and great fun was had by all!
This is a remarkable story of a musical family dedicated to raising money so that children from the violent shanty-towns of Medellín could continue to sing! So, THANK YOU DOROTHEE AND ALL THE SCHACK FAMILY!!! AND EVERYONE WHO SUPPORTED THIS PROJECT. We hope to bring our choir to Britain eventually to do a concert tour; perhaps in 2016. Then you and many of the people who have helped you raise this money, will have a chance to meet them and hear them in person.