Santa Fe Swing 
- We have a rotating group of dancers teaching swing dance at the Odd Fellows hall on Monday nights.
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- Swing Dancing at Odd Fellows Hall AND Music in the Public Schools
- How did we get started swing dancing at Odd Fellows Hall?
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- The Odd Fellows Hall has just about the best dance floor in Santa Fe. Dance
groups have met here for years. In 1997 some of the people who danced
at the hall realized that there were only a few surviving Odd Fellows Lodge
members and that in the foreseeable future all of them would have died
or moved away and our favorite dance space would be sold and turned into
a strip mall. As a further complication, only men could become Odd Fellows
and only the Odd Fellows had control of the Hall. Some male dancers
became members of the lodge and some female dancers joined the Rebekahs
Lodge (the female arm of the Odd Fellows).
Here in Santa Fe, the Lodge’s modest income came from renting the hall.
But since the hall belonged to the Odd Fellows, the Rebekahs needed to
develop an alternate source of revenue. We were not interested in bake
sales or raffles or any of the traditional female fund raisers. In 1998, one of our
members suggested putting on swing dances. We tried it and to our
amazement it was phenomenally successful. The timing was perfect; swing
dancing was popular; and we had hundreds of dollars more than we
needed. We decided we needed a charity to support.
Another of our members had a son participating in the band program at
Capital High. Knowing that the Santa Fe Schools allocated very little
money for music programs, she suggested we invite Ortiz Middle School’s
wonderful band director, Roland Villa, to speak to us. He gave a deeply
moving speech explaining how music had saved his life. He felt that
without school music, he would have ended up in a gang using drugs and probably be in jail by now.
But his love of playing music kept him in school so that he graduated
from high school and then from college. His life’s work was teaching
kids to play instruments and he chose Ortiz since there he saw the
greatest need for his talents. He said he had no budget to buy
instruments or sheet music and could not even afford to buy a repair kit
to fix the instruments he had. After we stopped crying, we voted to
give him the $350 he needed to purchase the repair kit, the $$coming from our swing dance income.
This worked so well that we decided to find a way to help the teachers
in the 4 (now 5) Southside schools – Sweeney, Chavez and Ramirez Thomas
elementary schools, Ortiz Middle School and Capital High – in their
efforts to keep music alive. These are some of the lowest income
schools in the Santa Fe school district. Many of the students are
immigrants whose parents speak no English and they need all the help
they can get.
Roland invited us to visit his class a short time later. Here were these
little kids – 6th graders, neatly dressed, holding their instruments properly,
paying attention, working together and playing “Twinkle, Twinkle Little
Star” for all they were worth. It was sweet and touching and, after we stopped crying, we decided that we
wanted to do more.
It turned out that one of the folk dancers we knew, Lorraine Goldman, was a phenomenal fund
raiser. She taught us how to create a "needs assessment" so we could
learn what the individual music teachers actually needed – this one
needed sheet music, that one needed violins, the other one needed 2
trumpets and a trombone etc. With this information in hand, she
approached people she knew, local banks and other large businesses, and
said “Look. Ortiz Middle School needs a trumpet that costs ‘x’. Would
you donate ‘x’ number of dollars for this purpose?” Using this “bridal
registry” model, she raised a lot of money which the Rebekahs gave directly to the teachers.
The Santa Fe Odd Fellows Lodge has continued to sponsor swing dances at
the hall and has continued to raise money for Music in the Public Schools from a wide variety of other
sources. At this point, we’ve raised more than
$500,000 for the Santa Fe music teachers!
Coordinating, paying and tracking expenditures is all volunteer, so there's no
administrative cost to the music projects. We support general music
teachers, violin teachers, guitar teachers, a Mariachi band (complete
with uniforms!), choral teachers, band and
orchestra. As an example, we provided a $10,000 drum line to the
Capital High Marching Band! Any child in these schools who wants to play
an instrument or sing is able to do so. Thousands of kids have been positively affected by this program. We have the support of the Superintendent of
the Santa Fe Public Schools who understands that studying music helps
children learn and keeps them in school.
Every year, the Odd Fellows invite the music teachers and school
administrators to a dinner at the hall so that they can share what they
have accomplished and what they hope to accomplish in the future. We’ve
been moved listening to them, admiring their dedication and their love
of their students. One teacher who came to Santa Fe from a wealthy
California school said he was astonished to realize that we were
providing the kids with instruments of far better quality than his
previous employer.
Now, after all these years, we have attended and enjoyed innumerable
school music events. The kids have far surpassed that early “Twinkle,
Twinkle Little Star”. We’ve watched and listened as 60 middle school
kids played quite difficult classical music in the Ortiz Orchestra. We
have been especially proud of our annual Roland Villa awards program
which recognizes kids who show particular talent or dedication. (We were all devastated when Roland passed away, much much too early.)
Perhaps most amazing has been the effect our efforts have had on the
School Board which has now added a music coordinator to their staff in
order to provide appropriate music education in all of Santa Fe’s public
schools. Santa Fe now has one of the best music programs in the entire country!!!
And to think that all of this grew out of swing dancing! What a great result!
A Note Concerning the Odd Fellows:
The Independent Order of Odd Fellows is an international benevolent
organization dating back to the 1800’s. Its stated purpose is to
“Comfort the sick, Bury the dead, and Care for the widow & orphan.”
If you scout around almost any town in the US and in many other
countries you’ll find an Odd Fellows Lodge.
The Rebekahs are the women's auxiliary for the Odd Fellows. Here in Santa Fe, NM the Santa Fe Rebekahs Lodge membership consists almost entirely of dancers (although you do not need to be a dancer to be an Odd Fellow).
On another front, Australia’s Independent Order of Odd Fellows had
finally had enough of the out-dated division between men and women and
permitted women to join their Odd Fellows Lodges. (I always liked those
Aussies!!) That change was soon adopted by the American Odd Fellows. So
the members of the Santa Fe Rebekahs quickly became Odd Fellows too in
order to gain some control over the hall. So where once you may have heard
of the Rebekahs’ music program, now you’ll hear about the Odd Fellows’
music program. It’s the same people still working to help provide music
in the Public Schools.
By the way, if you ever feel an interest in learning more about the Odd
Fellows or the music program, feel free to talk to any of the members of
the local Odd Fellows’ Lodge. We’re always interested in welcoming new
like-minded members. Please visit the Santa Fe Odd Fellows' website.