Presentation of the Inaugural Dr. Frank B. Siegel Memorial Service Award and Special Thanks to our Circle of Friends Garden Party Sponsors

CAC Member Anu Sharma Magee with outgoing Director of Publicity and Promotion Raj Tawney

Left to right: CAC Co-Director Dylan Skolnick; Inaugural Dr. Frank B. Siegel Memorial Service Award Recipient Dr. Joan Penrose Borum; Circle of Friends Member Joan Isaac; CAC Co-Director Charlotte Sky

On Sunday, August 5th, we held our annual Circle of Friends Garden Party. This event recognizes and celebrates the work of our Circle of Friends volunteers who through their vital efforts support the outreach and fundraising goals of the Cinema Arts Centre's Development Department. This is also a wonderful opportunity to connect with many of our deepest supporters.

This year's event was sponsored by Board Member Jude Schanzer who underwrote the live music performed by The Red Door Chamber Players ; Bottles and Cases , Butera's Restaurant , Main Street Nursery ; Bagel Chalet , Best Bagel A Round , IHOP - Huntington ; and Premier Diner .

This year's event was also a very special opportunity to recognize the legacy of the late Dr. Frank B. Siegel, a Circle of Friends volunteer survived by Circle of Friends volunteer Joan Isaac. Frank's service through his work with the Circle of Friends included contributing to fundraising events, performing direct outreach to members, and utilizing his professional expertise to support the Development Department in organizing and making better use of our data systems. The inaugural Dr. Frank B. Siegel Memorial Services award was presented by Joan Isaac to Dr. Joan Penrose Borum, a Circle of Friends volunteer who has had a profound impact for many years, but notably over the past year in addition to promoting membership and working to make our annual Academy Awards Night a great success, also contributed her unique skills to run a series of customer service workshops for our front-of-house staff.

Co-Directors Charlotte Sky and Dylan Skolnick, in addition to thanking so many of our wonderful supporters, also recognized and thanked our outgoing Director of Publicity and Promotions Raj Tawney, who after three years of excellent work on behalf of the Cinema, will be moving on to new adventures.

This was truly a celebration of community and all of us at the Cinema Arts Centre feel deeply grateful to be supported by such wonderful volunteers, members, and donors.

About Our "One Dollar Campaign" for Capital Improvements

We heard you. We know that it’s important to you that the Cinema Arts Centre makes improvements to our facility, especially to replace our decades-old seats. We have received many contributions toward seat replacement and are holding those funds while we actively pursue additional funding to complete this project. We have recently submitted for a $50,000 grant. We are currently investigating other funding opportunities. If we are successful in our fundraising, the new seats will be installed in 2019.

Our "One Dollar Campaign" is a way for everyone to help ensure our success and make meaningful improvements to our independent community cinema that we can all enjoy.

This idea came from our Board Member Dr. Isabel Pavao-Horvath who serves on our Development Committee. Isabel said, "The main idea is to get all the community members involved and empowered by giving one dollar extra when going to the Cinema for this campaign - how many we are and what we can do just by giving one dollar each time is such a powerful thing. It's a reinforcement of the idea of belonging to our Cinema community, where everyone gets involved in keeping our programs and the Cinema, with cultural and economic diversity, going strong."

Each contribution at the Box Office goes to a restricted fund for capital improvement. Our two main priorities at this time are the essential replacement of our seats in Theaters One and Two, and the replacement of our small and damaged screens in Theaters One and Two,

You may have noticed, our screens have arrived!

We will be writing to you again soon to let you know our schedule for installing screens. Replacing our screens will be such a huge improvement for Theaters One and Two. Not only will the screens be bigger, brighter, and higher, but we will be able to make needed improvements to the soundproofing during the installation. This will not only help us to reduce bleed-though between the two theaters, but will allow us to improve the sound quality in our main auditorium.

These projects can be supported through contributions to the "One Dollar Campaign" or by making a direct gift to the Cinema Arts Centre.

If everyone who comes to the movies contributes $1 toward our capital fund, that would ensure our ability to replace our seats, screens, and make other critical capital improvements.  

Amount Needed for Seats and Screens:

In addition, funds raised through the purchase of seat plaques will directly support seat replacement. Plaques will be installed immediately after the new seats are put in place, dependent upon successful fundraising and anticipated for 2019.

Call for Volunteers

There has been much talk about raising capital funds, and this is so important, especially as 80% of our revenue in invested in programs for our community and just 20% goes to all administration and overhead. But we also must raise program and operating support every year.

The Life of OUR Cinema Campaign is our annual appeal for general operating support.

The Cinema Arts Centre earns an average of $7 per attendee annually, yet our annual expenses average $17 per attendee. That means we need to raise an extra $10 for everyone who comes to a CAC program. Your fully tax-deductible Life of OUR Cinema gift (in addition to your membership support) makes you part of the movement that helps us deliver our mission, to bring the best in cinematic artistry to our community, year after year.

An important part of our campaign is to engage volunteers from our community to not only make a campaign gift, but to ask their own contacts to join them in supporting our community cinema. These volunteers are often members of our Circle of Friends volunteer group, but any member can become a volunteer campaigner.

We will launch our campaign in mid-October. If you are interested in learning more about becoming a volunteer campaigner , please email rene@cinemaartscentre.org .

 The Cinema Arts Centre is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization. The mission of the Cinema Arts Centre is to bring the best in cinematic artistry to Long Island, and use the power of film to expand the awareness and consciousness of our community.

Thanks to our August Program Sponsors:

Thanks to Stuart and Ginger Polisner for their ongoing support of our Real-to-Reel and Creativity Series.

When you visit a business that supports the cinema, please let them know how much it means to you.

Major Grant Support

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