Governor Ron DeSantis’ $32 million budget cuts to Florida’s cultural arts programs will drive children away from enriching, skill-focused activities and back onto the streets, where they will be swept up and initiated into the inevitable gangs that have perennially plagued their impoverished neighborhoods.
The alternatives we have been providing them to save lives, improve their skills and expand their minds are being recklessly taken away from them. Now, these children will seek attention, validation and approval from their peers in unsupervised and dangerous activities that the masters of the street will force them to submit to.
The children we have been providing a “Theatrical Summer Camp Experience” to at M Ensemble Theatre Company come from economically depressed neighborhoods, plagued by crime and violence. These children have been acquiring academic and technical skills while throwing off the yoke of poverty, achieving and moving towards a bright and positive future. Now, these innocent and eager-to-learn children will be affected by their busyness as they become the next victims of these damaging budget cuts.
These destructive scenarios will become the “new norm” under DeSantis, a norm that will impose a toxic reality on Florida’s children.
During our 53 consecutive years of theatre service in schools and communities throughout Miami-Dade County, many lives have been healed and saved. We have been publicly recognized for the superlative and distinguished service we have consistently provided to the greater Miami area.
In the U.S. House of Representatives, DeSantis’ then-colleague, Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, took center stage and proclaimed to the world the wonderful works and impact our theater company was having on students and families in the broader Miami communities.
Ros-Lehtinen was kind enough to provide us with a brilliant video and a marbled plaque depicting and commemorating her historic comments.
Our productions include recognition in many, if not all, of the “performing arts categories” of the Carbonell Awards, South Florida’s premier theater and arts honors.
As a combat-wounded and combat-disabled United States Marine who was meritoriously promoted in combat and awarded the Purple Heart, I find this thoughtless and unprecedentedly damaging action taken by my Governor, a brother in arms in combat, alarming, heartbreaking, and disconcerting.
Returning home from war with combat wounds, I overcame the harrowing discomforts and torments of battlefield experiences. Theatre contributed greatly to my healing and rehabilitation – an artistic therapy kindly provided to me by the same theatre company that has granted me the honour of being its president.
Since my return to the United States, our theatre company has published a full-page, color tribute honoring our nation’s veterans in every theatre program, for each of our Broadway shows, for the past 53 years.
Governor Ron DeSantis, please put in place an immediate solution that will restore the lost funding we are seeking. This budget enhancement is critical in nature and of the utmost importance. The safety, security, and well-being of vulnerable children and families across the state of Florida are at risk. They will be hurt and harmed if there is not a swift response and remedy drafted by our CEO.
John Donnelly is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Miami-based M Ensemble Theatre. He lives in Key Largo.
