The greatest gift is a passion for reading. - Elizabeth Hardwick

Apply for an Early Childhood Reading grant and bring the Magic Carpet Theatre to your school, library or community in 2015!

Grant applications for the 2015 - 2016 year can

be submitted between March 1 thru April 30, 2015

Target has awarded grants totaling $40,000 to

Magic Carpet Theatre and numerous schools in Michigan allowing us to inspire children to read.

Catherine Zardus, Artistic Director of the Magic Carpet Theatre, encourages schools to take advantage of Target’s efforts to promote literacy in the community. “Target funding has really helped us reach students who otherwise might not have had the opportunity to experience live theatre. It is a privilege for us to inspire imaginations and promote literacy in what we do. Target’s support has made a huge difference and we are very grateful,” says Zardus. The Early Childhood Reading grant writing is simple, done online and takes less than two hours to complete. Magic Carpet Theatre can help others by forwarding a sample grant and answering questions about the process.

Since 2010, Target has awarded Magic Carpet Theatre Early Childhood Reading grants that totaled $16,000 for performances. In addition, twelve grants totaling $24,000 were awarded to educators in Michigan that had directly applied to Target themselves to bring Magic Carpet Theatre to their schools. With this total funding we visited Detroit Public Schools to perform over 16 times, Bradford Academy in Southfield, St. Genevieve in Livonia, Addams in Royal Oak, Divine Child in Dearborn among other schools, including every elementary school in Rochester with a shared grant among that school district. Bring us to your school – we'd love to meet and perform for you!