Help Heat Danceline save our home

Help Heat Danceline Save Our Studio Space

First and foremost, thank you for taking the time to read this and consider donating. This is the most vulnerable thing I have ever had to do, as I pride myself in ALWAYS being able to figure things out, and even while I write this, I have a knot in my stomach. After speaking to my business partner and close family, I have gained the courage to share our story with the hopes that we can lean on our community as we have strived to help our community for the past five years.

Who We Are

HEAT Danceline is a youth non-profit dance studio located in East Oakland. Founded in 2017, HEAT has remained committed to providing elite and well-rounded dance training to our students. Dancers train in ballet, jazz, tumbling, hip hop, contemporary, HBCU danceline/majorette and modern. HEAT is an acronym for Health Education Art and Therapy and strives to provide programming that addresses each of these tenets.

HEAT dancers perform and compete nationally and have been featured several times on major television networks, including Lifetime’s Bring It. HEAT has partnerships with Beastmode Apparel, Morehouse College’s Mahogany N Motion Dance Team, and The San Francisco Ballet. HEAT is also embedded in the Oakland community through work with organizations like Youth Uprising and Queens to be Academy and performing for organizations such as the National Coalition of 100 Black Women Oakland Bay Area Chapter, the Mayor, and First Fridays. HEAT Danceline is also one of the current Best in Flow winners for the Black Joy parade and has won 4 consecutive years.

HEAT dancers have attended colleges and universities on scholarships, such as Spelman College, Howard University, Hampton University, USC, UCLA, SF State, Cal State East Bay, and many more. HEAT Alumna continues to dance in college/professionally and has been signed to internationally recognized dance agencies like Clear Talent, Bloch and Movement Talent Agency. Please check us out at heatdanceline.org or @officialheatdanceline on Instagram

What We Need

HEAT received our non-profit status in 2019 pre-covid when HEAT was thriving. As a result of the pandemic, we lost about half of our student body. We survived in 2020 due to our loyal families and dancers who continued to dance via Zoom, even through all of the uncertainty. We were also awarded a grant which helped.

In 2021, we struggled, and I personally paid the studio rent for HEAT several times. Due to an error by our accountant, our 501c3 was revoked, and we spent much of the end of the year paying for it to be reinstated. It was reinstated in 2022, but the time and resources lost caused a devastating ripple effect, preventing us from receiving any grant money for the past year.

We have tried to keep our program affordable, and we did not increase fees for our dance families in 2021-2022, hoping we would gain enough students to pay our rent. Consequently, we were unable to pay our rent from January-June 2022, leaving us with a balance of $46,000. Our landlord has demanded we pay at least $36,000 by October 31st to avoid eviction.

I have tried everything I can while maintaining the integrity of the program, but I finally realized I cannot figure this out alone and need our community to help. HEAT has been a staple in over 700 young people’s lives over the past five years. Please help us keep our home in order and continue to serve more young people in the community.

The Vision

As of June 2022, we are finally able to pay our rent, as we started our growing new Majorette team and new Mini program. Ultimately, we envision HEAT to be a holistic and dynamic space for youth and their families. We would like to create a Bay Area Youth Marching Band, and create spaces for art, therapy and healing.

If you cannot donate at this time, we understand, but if you can give, please do and share our story. Although we know it will not be easy, HEAT will continue programming regardless of whether or not we lose our space, so please keep sending students our way. If there are other ways in which you can help, please reach out to us via email at [email redacted]. We are dedicated to our mission, and we will continue to persevere and LIGHT IT UP!

Sincerely,

Kalé Woods, Founder, Owner and Program Director