2010 Annual Report of the DANK Haus German American Cultural Center
In 2010, DANK Haus German American Cultural Center expanded its Core Programming schedule by 40%, offering a different activity each Friday night for German American culture. New to the schedule are Kultur Kûche and Sports Night while German Cinema Now shifted from Sunday evenings to boost attendance. Stammtisch, our fundamental signature event, has a renewed sense of purpose and direction as the general welcome to the DANK community and mission.
Between Core Programming and Special Events, the DANK Haus German American Cultural Center exposed the public to German American culture on 196 separate occasions. Event attendance records show over 7,000 visitors to the DANK Haus through September. We partner with the City of Chicago Office of Tourism, three tour companies and over 25 Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana schools since the installation of the museum exhibit, "Lost German Chicago."
German Language Education increased enrollment for both Children and Adults. Both Krabbelgruppe and Preschool doubled in size, a 10 week summer session was added for adult learners and 2 new classrooms were constructed. Over 40% of our instructors hold Masters in German and over 85% are native speakers.
In 2010, we aligned with the Chicago Cultural Alliance, a consortium of Chicago's ethnic museums, cultural centers, and historical societies. The Alliance connects our member museums and centers to flagship arts and cultural institutions, universities, schools, businesses and government agencies. This opportunity affords us access to a rich pool of resources and information that we would not be able to obtain alone. Through the CCA and our own initiatives, DANK Haus German American Cultural Center was able to attend many festivals and fairs to inform the public of our educational and cultural activities. We were present at the Chicago's Children Museum, Navy Pier, the 5th Annual Chicago Sister Cities festival, Millennium Park, a Chicago Public School teacher in service and served as keynote speaker at the University of Illinois at Chicago German Department honors program.
DANK was host to many of the highlights of the community calendar: National Turner Convention, St Hubertus dinner, Rosenmontag, Schubert Lyra Spring Concert, Willi Resetarits Concert and the German National Handball team Official Welcome.
Our structure consists of 814 members, 12 unpaid Board members, 7 regular committees, 1 working committee and 2 taskforces. We have 1 paid Executive Director, 2 Facility staff, 14 part time Educators and 3 unpaid interns. There are 27 key volunteers who are pivotal in producing 196 public cultural events in one year. There are over 275 volunteers that ensure our major fundraiser, Maifest, earns 12% of the annual operating budget and performs as an outreach activity.
