Five performing arts organizations bringing theater, dance and music to those who might otherwise be left out are the recipients of 2026 grants from the Emily List Fund for Performing Arts Therapy.
Emily’s Fund, established in her memory in 2011 after she lost her life to cancer at 26, honors her work as an actor and dancer by helping to see that everyone — no matter their income, physical ability or mental health — can participate in the performing arts.
In the past 15 years, the Fund has awarded more than $100,000 in grants to 30 performing arts organizations, many of them just starting out or struggling because of a general lack of support for the arts.
Emily’s Fund, for example, supported Good Medicine as it was beginning a program 10 years ago to bring smiles to hospitalized children through theater. Its founder and director, Kristie Koehler Vuocolo, said: “Your early support helped us begin our work at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, and the impact of Emily’s grants has rippled outward for 10 years now.”
Good Medicine has received another grant this year in recognition of its 10th anniversary. This one will be used to make regular visits to Ronald McDonald House where “families live in the in-between” while their children battle serious illness. Good Medicine artists will use theater to connect with the children and their families and help them connect with each other, bringing them out of the isolation too often associated with serious illness.
Vuocolo said, “I carry deep gratitude to Emily every time we walk into a room to do this work.”
Gary Bernice, conductor of the SciTech Band in Springfield, also speaks of the difference Emily’s grants have made to the school’s mission to bring music into the lives of public school students in Springfield.
When Emily’s Fund began supporting the band with grants nine years ago, there were only two Springfield schools with instrumental music programs. “Thanks to Emily’s grants, we’ve grown to 12 schools this past year, and with continuing support, there will be 20 schools this year with thousands of students given access to the joys of music,” said Bernice.
The impact of this expansion is especially meaningful when you know that the 500 SciTech band students are three times more likely to stay in school than non-band students, and they learn not only music but the meaning of leadership and community. Now these lessons are being shared in all Springfield public schools.
Emily’s Fund has helped buy instruments for students who can’t afford them and has helped build the IGNITE: Mentoring through Music program, led by SciTech band students. Once a month the city’s music students and educators gather at the Community Music School of Springfield to forge a pathway to engage and support all of the city’s music students.
“This program would not be possible without the precious gift of Emily’s Fund,” Bernice said.
Building community is also part of the mission of Valley Players in its third year of producing accessible theater in the Valley. Part of that mission is donating half of the net revenue from each program to another nonprofit in the Valley. Recipients have included Cancer Connection, the Food Bank of Western MA, the Peace Development Fund, the Literacy Project and the Amherst Survival Center, among others. Half the proceeds from this year’s shows will go to the Center for New Americans and Out Now.
President Matteo Pangallo said Valley Players also builds community through its all volunteer system (“so anyone can get involved”), holding open auditions (“so anyone can audition for a role”) and offering tickets on a pay-what-you-can basis (“so anyone can afford to see the show”).
Emily’s grant will specifically sponsor this fall’s production of “At the Wedding,” which Pangallo said “creates space for audiences, particularly those who are under-represented, to see themselves not at the edges of the story, but at its center.”
Dan Prindle, co-founder with his wife Michelle of the Prindle School, said last year’s grant from Emily’s Fund was used for scholarships for several summer music camps. Five campers, who otherwise would not have been able to afford these experiences, participated in Rock Band, Percussion Party and Arts Blend programs and another student received a month’s worth of private piano lessons.
The music school, located in Easthampton, Florence and Hadley, will do similar outreach to participants with this year’s grant, “so there is no barrier to entry for students at any income level.”
The Prindles also advocate for funding of music in the public schools because, as evidenced by the SciTech band, music students experience many benefits from higher test scores to fewer disciplinary issues.
Finally, Born Dancing in New York City believes that “everyone is born dancing,” according to founder Melissa Van Wijk, and that everyone should have the opportunity to keep dancing.
Disability belongs in dance, Van Wijk said, and her company includes dancers in wheelchairs and those with other disabilities.
She’ll use this year’s grant to help create a new piece with 14 dancers — some with disabilities and some without — that looks at progress and regression “with a particular focus on those with disabilities and how they are often viewed and treated.” The piece will be performed in December at New York Live Arts.
Emily’s Fund has supported Born Dancing for 11 years because we feel a special bond with Van Wijk’s work, described as “unstoppable, inspiring and fearless” because Emily was all of those things too. She was born dancing, and she continued dancing to her last days.
For more information on Emily’s Fund, go to emilylistfund.org.
Karen List is Emily’s mom and professor emeritus in Journalism at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
