YOU are invited to the UNITY Kickoff Concert! 
On May 3rd, 2009 the most inspiring student performers from each high school participating in UNITY’s Hip Hop Away From Violence program will perform for their friends, family and fellow students in this empowering and celebratory event.
JOIN US in supporting youth from your community who are using their creative talents to inspire positive change.
There will be a morning and an evening show to choose from, along with a reception between each show. Please RSVP to unitycharity@gmail.com.
Click here to view the event invitation and details. Student Highlight: Neeta Dash aka. MC Essence   Neeta Dash aka MC Essence is a talented and powerful spoken word artist who is currently participating in our programs. She first got involved with UNITY through the Hip Hop Away From Violence program at her former High School, Harold M. Brathwaite in Brampton. Before working with UNITY, Neeta was labeled as being “at risk” in her school and said she was subject to gangs, drugs and violence. After working with UNITY, Neeta realized the power of using spoken word poetry to share her voice with her peers and community. Today, Neeta is completing her first year at Seneca College for Independent Music Production, and is currently applying to University Social Work programs, which she says UNITY inspired her to pursue. Neeta truly lives the UNITY message and has used her art form to reach higher levels of personal success. Neeta speaks for all the youth in our program. We are so proud to welcome her in as the newest UNITY Board Member.
Click here to view a full testimonial of Neeta’s experiences with UNITY.  Hip Hop Away From Violence: HUGE Success!
From December 2008 to February 2009, UNITY reached over 5,000 youth through assemblies and workshops at: Sandalwood Heights S.S., John Fraser S.S., Don Mill C.I., St. Clare C.S., Lord Dufferin P.S. and Markham District H.S. This is just the beginning as we are preparing to go into about 12 more schools in the next 3 months! Thanks to everyone who made this possible.
Upcoming High School Shows: Come out, Be Inspired! We would love for you to join us at one of our upcoming assemblies. Come experience the impact that UNITY has on youth across the city. Get involved.
Please RSVP by email to unitycharity@gmail.com.
April: Dr. G W Williams SS, North Albion CI, Cedarbrae CI
May: UNITY Kickoff Concert, Brother Andre CHS
* Contact us to find out school dates and times. RSVP today and bring a friend. Pilot Project: UNITY After School Clubs UNITY started our first ever pilot of after school clubs at Don Mills CI running from February to May 2009. After 3 successful assemblies for the whole school and in class workshops for over 600 students, the students of Don Mills were so excited to learn more about the positive artistic outlets that UNITY introduced to them in December. Our after-school clubs bring youth together to dance, create art, and express themselves positively through poetry. Our professional artistic mentors and instructors guide youth to finding their passion and presenting their work to their community. We are so excited to provide our youth with more opportunities for creative self-expression.
Two heads are better then one. UNITY is actively seeking community partnerships to increase our impact on the youth in our program and extend the services we are able to offer. Some partnerships we have developed over the past few months include projects with the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center, Blueprint for Life Consulting and Green Solutions. There are many more partnerships being explored and developed so we are able to extend our programs to youth with the support of the community.
Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center: Click here to see their reference letter.
Blueprint for Life Consulting: From March 14th to 23rd Michael Prosserman, UNITY Founder and President joined Blueprint on a project in the Arctic in a town called Puvirnituq. This will be Michael’s first project with Blueprint teaching “Social work through Hip Hop” in partnership with Blueprint for Life. To learn more about the amazing work that Blueprint is doing you can check out their website at www.blueprintforlife.ca.
Green Solutions: Our partnership with Green Solutions has provided our charity with donated computers to accomplish more efficient office work. We are also discussing further partnerships to recycle desks into graffiti art canvases for our youth in the near future. We are thrilled to announce that UNITY is going to Halifax! From May 10th to 24th 2009, 7 Halifax high schools will participate in UNITY’s Hip Hop Away From Violence Program.
The official Launch of our NEW Interactive Educational Website It has arrived! UNITY recently launched a new interactive, educational website. This new site allows our youth to share, watch and learn new talents through videos posted by their peers and our professional performers and instructors. This is just one of many new ways we are providing additional follow up for the youth in our program. Now youth can upload their art online and share creating ongoing online communities of positive expression.
UNITY is currently writing and applying for funding from several grants and foundations. UNITY is also continuing to raise money through individual and corporate donations. Since December 2008, UNITY has raised over $40,000 through the support of our generous donors.
Click here to see UNITY’s full list of donors. 
With the speed of UNITY’s growth, we are seeking a funding base to help create a sustainable infrastructure. This base will allow UNITY to transform youth for many years to come. UNITY’s goal is to develop a $100,000 foundation through a founding pool of donors called “Angel Social Investors”.
We are still in search of “Angels” to add to our list of investors.
We are currently looking for commitments from “Angels” for anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000 to help us reach our goal of $100,000.
Help us set our foundation.
Here’s how…
1) Set up a meeting with Michael Prosserman if you are interested to discuss getting involved at 416-938-9693
2) Connect us with someone you know who we can setup a meeting with to see if they’d like to get involved. Special Thanks to UNITY’s Angel Social Investors:
• Ira Gluskin
• Richard Rooney
• Stephen Diamond
• Gary Prosserman
• Ron Prosserman
• Birch Hill
Getting the all the needed checks and balances We are planning to get our first financial audit this March as transparency and solvency is of the highest important to our organization for all of our supporters. Also, UNITY has recently received general liability insurance, which is yet another way we are ensuring that we align our organization with success. We are also creating and implementing UNITY HR policies, finance policies, and codes of conduct.
During the Winter season UNITY has run 3 exciting third party fundraisers.
If you have an idea for a 3rd party fundraiser please call Mike to discuss how you can run a great event that give back to the commUNITY. Bring UNITY on as the benefactor of your next big event so we can make a difference together. Special UNITY performances and/or information presentations can be arranged to create some excitement and inspiration for any of your upcoming events. Be creative, anyone can run a fundraiser (business people, students, teachers, parents, etc.)
Winter Fundraisers
1) Joy Apparel: in December 2009 Jeff from Joy Apparel www.joytshirt.com made UNITY the “charity of the month” donating part proceeds from all t-shirt sales to our charity.
2) So you think you CANT dance: in February of 2009 UNITY collaborated with Bonnie Chan to run a dancing afternoon for those over the age of 25 to inspire adults back into dancing. This event raised over $800!
3) Bobble Heads: in March 2009 Benjamin and Vinny from www.igradbobble.com collaborated with UNITY to donate part of all proceeds of bobble heads sold by the UNITY crew back into the charity.  Volunteer Highlight: Jennifer Tse  Jennifer Tse is a third year student in the demanding concurrent education program at York University. Jen has been an integral part of UNITY since its inception. Her work with UNITY includes program coordinating and event planning. For the past 3 years, she has been an unbelievable stage manager for various UNITY and UNITY @ York University events. Today, Jen is on the Executive committee for UNITY @ York and through her concurrent education teacher’s placement, signed up Langstaff Secondary School to run the Hip Hop Away From Violence high school outreach program. Jen’s passion for UNITY shines through her positive attitude and her countless hours volunteered with our charity. Jen is just one of many dedicated youth volunteers at UNITY. BIG thanks to Jen and all UNITY volunteers, we couldn’t do it without you. Performer Highlight: Matthew Rose  Matt Rose has been performing with UNITY since 2004 when he was only 13 years old in his first year in high school. Matt has grown from a humble student to a city-wide veteran in the art of beatboxing (creating music and beats with his mouth). Matt attended both Thornlea Secondary School and Markville Secondary School; and helped to organize and perform in both of his schools’ Hip Hop Away From Violence Assemblies. After realizing Matt’s strong leadership and unbelievable artistic talent we took him under our wing. Matt is now a core member of UNITY’s inspirational performer pool and comes around with us to schools all across the city to perform. Just recently Matt has appeared in the popular Smarties commercials and is in his first year of University at the University of Toronto. We are proud to have seen Matt grow from a humble high school student to a confident performer and post-secondary student now following his dreams. YOU can make a difference Help youth make positive life choices…
January to May is UNITY’s busy season in schools. It is critical that even while busy, we are continuing to raise funds to help build a sustainable infrastructure.
YOU can make a real difference. Get involved!
Here’s how…
1. Organize a UNITY “Lunch & Learn” presentation at your office
Invite your colleagues, friends and other potential supporters to a lunch meeting hosted by UNITY. Help us engage more donors and supporters into this inspiring cause.
2. Experience what we do and invite your colleagues
Experience what we do in the schools first hand and bring a friend. RSVP by email or phone to receive exact presentation dates, times and locations so you can truly see UNITY’s impact on youth across the city.
3. Donate
Click here for a copy of the UNITY donation card with our various levels of involvement. Donate personally, through your corporation or through your foundation. UNITY is a registered charity and can provide tax receipts for donations.
4. Run a fundraiser
Ideas… host a party where door gifts are requested as donations to UNITY, pitch for UNITY to be the benefactor of your next big event, come up with your own ideas! Be creative!
5. Sponsor our all schools “Kickoff” event in May
This event provides a forum for graduate youth from all of our schools to come together and share their inspiring messages. We are looking for sponsors to help us provide all graduating youth with a UNITY artistic mentor as a prize for their participation in our program.
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