23 Nov 00 - 07:15 AM (#345615)
Subject: The Henry Reed Fund
From: BanjoRay
This appeared in the Fiddle-L mailing list from Alan Jabbour - a very well respected fiddler (Hollow Rock String Band etc)and collector of Old Time stuff, and I thought it deserved an airing in the Mudcat.
Cheers
Ray.
Thanksgiving, 2000
Dear Friend:
As you may know already, Henry Reed of Glen Lyn,Virginia, was my mentor on the fiddle back in the 1960s. To mark my retirement from the American Folklife Center at the end of last year, I made a donation with the goal of establishing a new endowed fund at the Library of Congress, the Henry Reed Fund for Folk Artists. It will be a trust fund managed by the Library of Congress Trust Fund Board and administered by the director of the American Folklife Center.
The Henry Reed Fund will support programs and activities directly involving and benefitting folk artists --support for concerts and workshops, compensation for publications from the Center's collections, support for folk artists to research and document their traditions, support for apprentices, or any other program undertaken by the Center, so long as there is a direct benefit for folk artists. When I think of what such a fund can do, I remember the Center's Neptune Plaza concert series, now in abeyance for lack of funding.
I picture the Cambodian dance troupe, reassembled in America after the ravages of the Khmer Rouge, appearing for the first time in public on the steps of the Library of Congress. Or the Cubans from the Mariel boat exodus, who met and formed a band in a refugee holding camp, and sang a song of greeting to their host country on the Library steps facing the Capitol. Or I reflect on a recent letter from a fiddle devotee who has been recording an extraordinary but unheralded fiddling tradition in southern Mexico, and needs funding to help his Mexican mentors preserve a tape collection of their art.
Others have joined me in contributing to the Henry Reed Fund, and on December 1st we had a special benefit concert for the fund at the State Theater in Falls Church. Pete Seeger, Balfa Toujours, Stephen Wade, and other performers joined me and members of the Reed family in what the audience and the press acclaimed as a memorable folk event. More checks arrived from well-wishers, and by now the fund has received over $15,000.
But $15,000 is not enough. The Library of Congress Trust Fund Board, which manages all the endowed funds at the Library, requires a minimum of $25,000 to set up a special endowed fund, and we have a year from the original donation to reach the $25,000 plateau. So I am writing to you, and to a number of people like you who are friends of folk artists, friends of the American Folklife Center, or friends of mine, to ask for your help.
Please help us with a donation as we make our big push toward the full establishment of the Henry Reed Fund by the end of this year. Your donation is fully tax deductible, and it will help strengthen the programmatic capacity of the American Folklife Center in the years to come. I'll be eternally grateful, as will my successor as director of the American Folklife Center, Peggy Bulger. If you've already donated last year and can now make a second contribution, we are all doubly grateful. I'll certainly be making another contribution myself. I should add that the Reed family, who have made many generous contributions themselves, have asked me to express their gratitude to everyone else whose donation further commemorates Henry Reed's contributions to America's artistic heritage.
You may send your donations to me or to Dr. Peggy Bulger,Director of the American Folklife Center, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540-4610. Annotate your check "Henry Reed Fund." If you have questions about the Fund, feel free to contact me.
Thank you so much for any help you can provide.
Best regards, Alan
Alan Jabbour
3107 Cathedral Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20008-3420
jabbour@excelonline.com
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