Dear Acro Family, Friends and Community,
I hope that you and your families are safe and well during one of the worst pandemics in history. Along with the rest of the AcroSports staff, I for one am eagerly looking forward to the day when our gym becomes alive again.
During this unprecedented and difficult time, we are reaching out to you, our AcroFamily, community and friends to support AcroSports, a local not for profit organization many of you know well. We hope, with your help, to be able to continue to offer the programs that so many of you have grown to love as soon as we are able to safely reopen.
AcroSports closed our doors on March 13th due to the coronavirus outbreak, and we continue to remain closed until it is safe to resume operations. We are currently looking at a projected resumption of regular operations on or around October 1, 2020, however that could readily change, given the current state of COVID infection rates in the Bay Area.
As is the case for many nonprofits and small businesses in this uncertain time, AcroSports has faced financial hardship as a result of our closure. Cancelled classes, camps, parties and special events - everything we offer! - represent not only a major loss of potential income, but has also been a huge drain on fiscal reserves, as we continue to issue requested refunds for any pre-paid summer programming.
We fortunately managed to pay all scheduled staff for the first three weeks of the closure, from the now notorious Friday the 13th of March through the first week of April, but that was the most our limited fund surplus could allow. In mid-April we were able to secure a PPP loan to temporarily re-employ some of our staff, allowing us to proceed with some planned facility upgrades and host a series of online programs, but that funding has now been expended, and unfortunately did not support activities that generated any much-needed revenue.
We have winnowed our staff down to the bare minimum as we wait for an all-clear to resume operations, but a number of fixed, ongoing operational expenses continue on regardless. As of the end of July, our total expenses are nearing half a million dollars, as shown in the infographic below.
Given these significant expenditures, we are asking our community for any contribution to AcroSports that you may be able to extend. Such a donation would not only help us recoup losses from these past few months, but also to ensure we can quickly restart programming when we are able to safely reopen.
In addition to regular cash donations, another great way to contribute is to donate any standing AcroSports class credit you may currently have on file. If this is something you would like to do, please email info@acrosports.org to let us know that you’d like to donate your credit. This would be considered a fully tax-deductible contribution in the same way that a regular cash donation would, and will assist us greatly during this challenging time.
As noted above, all donations to AcroSports - either cash, or the donation of standing credits - are 100% tax exempt. We are a nonprofit organization as described in section 501©(3) of the Internal Revenue Code with EIN of 94-3180899. Your generous contribution to AcroSports’ future will be multiplied again and again in the lives of the children, youth, adults and seniors AcroSports helps shape into empowered, creative, community-oriented people.
Take care and be well,
Sincerely,
Dorrie Huntington
Executive Director