View our Newsletter (pdf)
Acknowledging and Appreciating Vonage’s Jeffery and Suzanne Citron
Laurice and the Portals Of Wonder family wish to express our deepest appreciation to Jeffery and Suzanne Citron and their Vonage team for on-going support and community partnership since 2005. Vonage’s vital support provides the primary community outreach telecommunication for Portals Of Wonder.
New and Expanding Programs
Since our beginning up through the present, the folks who make up Portals Of Wonder have personally and lovingly created and delivered hundreds of custom programs on a one-of-a-kind basis. We pride ourselves on not being a factory, technocracy or cold administration. Nor are we a multi-million dollar group of professional fundraisers or bean counters or business people [although balanced integration of more individuals with those skills could certainly be helpful]. We are simply a very small group of highly disciplined, expert artists, educators, healers and visionaries who have pioneered models and critically acclaimed work, and developed, produced and delivered this work internationally. Each program is hand made by us personally to fit the need presented to us.
A volunteer-driven nonprofit community organization, Portals Of Wonder’s team has brought magic, mime, music and myth to over 10,000 critically ill children, disadvantaged and homeless youth, frail elderly and Holocaust survivors, cultural and educational enrichment to communities and other special projects and programs at no cost to these individuals and families.
We express our appreciation for video clips of our past programs generously edited by Robert DeNiro’s company, Danny Goldberg, Nice Shoes Post Production and Metro Post, available at www.PortalsOfWonder.org.
Portals Of Wonder has created, built and delivered pioneering cultural arts education workshops, consultations, trainings, and performance programs to hospitals, homeless shelters, places of worship, schools, foster-care agencies, theaters, community centers and corporations.
And through a family of companies and provider partnerships, we have supplied individuals and families with free or low cost social work and mental health services on a case by case basis.
Our small historic house museum is home to our educational multi-media library and collection of over 250,000 items dating to 1836 – rare out of print books, audio, video and more including 1,500 pieces of Holocaust artworks critically acclaimed by the New York Times, mostly created by Laurice’s father Morty. These materials span the subjects from depth psychology and Jewish mysticism to theatrical magic, Yiddish musical theater, Broadway and Hollywood.
We are delighted to say that we have successfully recovered from over a half million dollars in damages from Hurricanes Irene and Sandy, saved the historic property and collection, and are healing from illnesses resulting from environmental toxins. This recovery was further hampered by the toxic build up from exposure and loss of our theater program in downtown Manhattan following the 9/11 World Trade Center tragedy.
So far, our combined capital and archive preservation campaign efforts have raised over $1.5M dollars in market value from a combination of humble sweat equity, cash and in-kind donations, foundation and government grants.
There is more to do. We cannot accomplish all this without the support of good neighbors like you who help us to meet both short and mid-term goals.
A grass-roots mom and pop organization, we enjoy long term relationships with our social investors and sponsors, both at the individual and corporate levels, by consistently providing benefits that exceed expectations.
Please feel free to reach out today. We need your support and always welcome your participation.
Individual selected stories from our Newsletter
The President’s Report:
3,000 Children Served by 15 Artists in 2 Years (pdf)
Homelessness Prevention of Foster Youth – By Magic! (pdf)
Off-Broadway Vaudeville Theater for Children (pdf)
Serving Victims of the World Trade Center Tragedy (pdf)
Now You See It…Eye-Hand Coordination Helps
Children with Brain Tumors & Cancer (pdf)
Laurice Takes Breath-Taking Risks For Underprivileged Youth (pdf)
NY Nonprofit, Excerpted, Issue 8 (pdf)
Letters of Endorsement
National Ziegfeld Club Letter (pdf)
Laurice with Doris Eaton [at 98], Nils Hanson, The National Ziegfeld Club Administrator, Sandra Nordgren, Executive Director of Portals Of Wonder, and therapy dog Sheeba Jewel, the Baby Lassie. At 101 years old, Doris was the world’s last living legendry Broadway Ziegfeld Girl. Doris, a fan of Laurice [it was a mutual fan club], danced the Charleston on Broadway leading a chorus of 60 once a year from the 1990’s through the early 2000’s for the Equity Fights AIDS benefit. She appears to standing ovations at the New Amsterdam Theater, the same theater she appeared at in 1919, 1920 & 1921.
Laurice’s performing arts philanthropic work has been acknowledged by the families of Broadway and Hollywood royalty from Houdini, Ziegfeld, Fred Astaire and Charlie Chaplin, to Pete Seeger, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, and by notable political and philanthropic figures from NY Gov. Mario Cuomo, NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and Mrs. Jean Kennedy Smith, and from Annenberg to Cornell Foundations, and organizations that range from the NYC Board of Education, NJ education systems, and the NYC Dept of Youth and Community Development, Hunter College School of Social Work, Yeshiva University, NYU, The New School University, the foster care agencies and systems of NYC and Germany, the United Nations diplomats corps, and many, many other notable governmental agencies, corporations and foundations internationally.
We are humbled and wish to express our gratitude to all those who have found value in and/or support of our work.