Louisville Leopards Percussionists headline 58th Crusade

Louisville Leopards Percussionists headline 58th Crusade

The Louisville Leopards Percussionists are local kids!

The 58th annual 30+ hour WHAS Crusade for Children Internet/radio/telethon benefitting children with special needs will be held Saturday and Sunday, June 4-5 2011.

The Louisville Leopards Percussionists, a performing ensemble of student musicians ages 7-12, will headline the 58th annual WHAS Crusade for Children Saturday, June 4, 2011 beginning at 7:00pm (EDT) in the Kentucky Center’s Bomhard Theater.

“We’re thrilled to have this local Louisville institution to help kick off the love fest…that is the WHAS Crusade for Children,” said Dawn Lee, Crusade President & CEO.

Leopards will lead thousands

The Leopards will lead “a cast of thousands.” Most of the thousands are Kentuckiana’s finest – the brave men and women of area fire departments. Numbering more than 200 departments strong across Kentucky and Indiana, firefighters stage “boot blocks” at intersections collecting every donation that comes their way to make life better for children with special needs. Their collections make the Crusade’s tote board rocket to the sky on Crusade weekend.

More about the Louisville Leopards

The Louisville Leopard Percussionists are comprised of 60+ student musicians ages 7-12, who reside in 20 different Louisville zip codes and attend 27 different schools in and around Louisville, Kentucky.

Award-winning elementary school teacher Diane Downs started her first percussion ensemble, The Fabulous Leopard Percussionists in 1993, after she found some old instruments in a storage closet in the school where she taught in Louisville. After ten years as artistic director of the Fabulous Leopard Percussionists, Diane began to explore how she might make the Leopard Percussionist experience available to children throughout the Metro Louisville community.

In the fall of 2003, The Louisville Leopard Percussionists launched as a freestanding community 501(c) (3) non-profit organization, committed to providing the exciting and enriching Leopard Percussionist experience to all children in the Louisville community.

Our mission is to provide a comprehensive musical experience for children that enriches lives and builds community.

Our vision is for participants of diverse backgrounds develop music appreciation, performance skills, proficiency on a variety of percussion instruments, and learn to improvise, compose, and teach music, and to care for their instruments. These skills build creativity and self-confidence and teach life-long values of personal discipline, cooperation, leadership, responsibility, and community.

The WHAS Crusade for Children

  • 100% of each donation to the WHAS Crusade for Children helps children with special needs.
  • Through the Crusade we’ve changed the lives of millions of children in Kentucky and Indiana since 1954.
  • Right now we’re funding 1 in 3 children who need the Crusade.

Change a child’s life, support the WHAS Crusade for Children.

To make a donation securely online, click here.

The WHAS Crusade for Children Endowment

In September, 2002, the WHAS Crusade for Children Board of Directors voted to create the new Crusade Endowment.

It guarantees that 100 percent of the Crusade’s annual telethon collections continue to go directly to agencies that help children with special needs. It ensures that millions more children will be helped for decades to come.

  • 100% of each donation to the WHAS Crusade for Children helps children with special needs
  • The Crusade Endowment Campaign fully funds our future.
  • Beyond your annual contribution, we need your Crusade Endowment donation now.

Change a child’s life forever, support the WHAS Crusade Endowment.

To make an Endowment donation securely online, click here and click on the ENDOWMENT button.

How the Crusade works

The WHAS Crusade for Children, Inc. established in 1954 by WHAS-TV, raises money for agencies, schools and hospitals to better the lives of special needs children.

$138 million raised for special needs children
In its first 57 years, the Crusade has raised more than $138 million. Thanks to generous contributions of goods and services, the Crusade is able to return 100 percent of all donations to organizations that serve special needs children in all 120 Kentucky counties and more than 50 southern Indiana counties. Fire departments raise more than 50 percent of the money each year by staging road blocks and other events

An independent board decides
An independent board of interdenominational ministers known as the Crusade Advisory Panel decides how donations are distributed each year.

Agencies apply for grants
Representatives from agencies, schools and hospitals apply for grants and appear before the panel during grant hearings held each spring. Once the hearings are complete, the advisory panel determines which agencies receive Crusade donations.

Since agency grant requests far exceed donations to the Crusade each year, the panel has difficult decisions to make.

For a complete listing of grant application rules, click here.

The Crusade telethon airs in June
The annual Crusade radio/telethon is held each year on the first full weekend in June and is aired on WHAS Radio (AM 840), WHAS-TV/DT (Channel 11.1) and worldwide on WHAS11.com. Portions of the broadcast are also seen and heard on a Kentucky statewide network.

Millions of children have been helped
Millions of children have been helped by the Crusade since 1954. The WHAS Crusade for Children celebrated 50 years of changing children’s lives in 2003.

Donations are tax deductible
The WHAS Crusade for Children, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) public charity. Gifts are tax-deductible as permitted by law.

To make a secure online donation, click here or call (502) 582-7706.

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