We’re less than a week away from the great Frankie Manning Tribute night here in Toronto. We hope to see everyone out for the wonderful event to help support a great cause – the Frankie Manning Fund.
In case you’re wondering what the Frankie Manning Fund has done with our past and upcoming donations, here’s some information on the “Frankie Manning Lindy Hop Ambassador Scholarship Program”.
The Frankie Manning Lindy Hop Ambassador Scholarship Program
A Frankie Manning Legacy Fund Project
The Frankie Manning, Lindy Hop Ambassador Scholarship Mandate:
To empower exceptional students of Lindy Hop who come from communities that have little or no exposure to Lindy Hop so that they may take what they learn back to their community of origin to help the spread of Lindy Hop. The successful scholarship recipients demonstrate great desire, natural ability and leadership qualities but may not have access to learning resources or the financial means to pursue and develop their dancing to its full potential.
This year, candidates have been selected from 2 specific groups:
1. The African-American/Black community; In his final years Frankie Manning enjoyed tremendous satisfaction from the global spread of Lindy Hop but always felt some regret at how relatively few African-Americans dance the Lindy Hop today; Frankie had a strong desire to see more African-American young people involved, particularly since it was the African-American community that played such an important role in giving birth to this dance.
2. New geographical representation; As part of his passion for the world domination of Lindy Hop, Frankie loved nothing more than learning that Lindy Hop had caught on in some new part of the world, be it Argentina or Lithuania. Recipients may come from an area where Lindy Hop is not danced or where it is in a very nascent stage of adoption and development.
In the future the Fund intends to finance a whole range of learning opportunities for those that are awarded scholarships; however, initially it intends to provide scholarships to attend Herrang Dance Camp in Sweden during July of 2011.The money that Toronto raised last year has been put toward the 2011 scholarships. Exceptional and extremely worthy recipients have been selected from around the world for these scholarships and Toronto is proud to help support this program.
