Mondays Dark keeps focus on children’s charities in 2018

Campers take turns climbing a rock wall during Camp Mend-A-Heart, a four-day camp by the Children's Heart Foundation for kids with heart conditions, at Torino Ranch outside of Las Vegas June 24. Brett Le Blanc/View Follow @bleblancphoto on Twitter

Staff members celebrate during a ribbon-cutting event at Baby's Bounty in North Las Vegas, Thursday, Dec. 7, 2017. The organization, founded in 2008 with a mission to provide essentials to babies born into disadvantaged families, is celebrating the opening of their first official building. Joel Angel Juarez Las Vegas Review-Journal @jajuarezphoto

Mark Shunock in front of The Space, a new charity based performance venue on Friday, Jan. 13, 2017, in Las Vegas. (Christian K. Lee/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @chrisklee_jpeg

Founder Kim Amato originally from New York City, N.Y., and now living in Las Vegas, 62, speaks during a ribbon-cutting event at Baby's Bounty in North Las Vegas, Thursday, Dec. 7, 2017. The organization, founded in 2008 with a mission to provide essentials to babies born into disadvantaged families, is celebrating the opening of their first official building. Joel Angel Juarez Las Vegas Review-Journal @jajuarezphoto

It’s been four years since Mondays Dark started raising money for nonprofits by holding monthly variety shows at Hard Rock Hotel.

In December, creator Mark Shunock and the 21 organizations that participated last year joined to celebrate the anniversary and to announce 21 more nonprofits that would join the biweekly Mondays Dark lineup in 2018.

2017 marked other milestones: Shunock and company celebrated the show’s 50th performance, which benefited Time Traveler’s Foundation, in July and hit the $500,000 mark in funds raised.

The Space, the show’s venue on Cavaretta Court west of the Strip, also celebrated its first birthday last year.

“It’s been amazing to see the brand evolve on the charity level,” Shunock said. “It’s still not a household name, but it is close when it comes to charities in Las Vegas.”

There are over 140 charities on the Mondays Dark waiting list. Shunock said the event is close to breaking the $1 million fundraising barrier, but that might take until 2019.

The 21 nonprofits on the lineup in 2018 are all newcomers. Shunock said he never intends to do repeats.

“It’s $10,000, and there’s enough organizations in town that need help,” he said. “When there are so many deserving organizations that we can keep changing them up every two weeks, we want to do that.”

While it’s always tough to pick the charities for the year, Shunock said, he wanted to focus on groups that benefit children.

For more information about Mondays Dark, visit mondaysdark.com. Here are some charities in the lineup for 2018:

March 19: Baby’s Bounty

Kim Amato founded Baby’s Bounty in 2008 after learning about children who were born in Las Vegas into homes that had virtually nothing.

She learned about mothers that were homeless or victims of domestic violence or were teens kicked out of their homes. Whether they were couch surfing, in shelters or in a home but living below the poverty line, Amato said caseworkers saw mothers unable to provide basic hygiene necessities, safe places to sleep and clothing for their babies.

She said there is a huge need for items like diapers, which can’t be purchased with food stamps because they’re classified as a luxury item.

Amato started Baby’s Bounty by handing out diaper bags full of toiletries, blankets and gently used clothes. As the company grew, Amato learned that one to two babies die every month due to an unsafe sleeping environment.

Now she includes portable cribs and car seats in the packages for new parents .

Each baby bundle the organization provides costs about $375. Despite finding the best deals, buying product in bulk and receiving donations, putting the bundles together is expensive.

The group works with 125 social-service agencies in the valley. For Amato, the biggest advantage of Mondays Dark is raising awareness.

“Even though we’re in our 10th year, people think of us as under the radar,” she said.

May 21: Positively Arts Foundation

Out of the Clark County School District’s 320,000-plus students, more than 56 percent receive a free or reduced-price lunch, an indicator used to measure the number of low-income students in a district.

Others might not come from a low-income family, but they have other struggles: They’ve been bullied. They’ve had a death in the family. They’ve been abused.

Positively Arts Foundation aims to “empower, inspire and heal” kids through music, dance and performance. The nonprofit was established in 2012 by Pilita Simpson, a Strip performer and former Public Education Foundation employee.

But her charitable work started before that, when she was in the cast of “Peepshow” at Planet Hollywood.

“I started working with a bunch of cast members by giving (performance) lessons to the kids,” Simpson said. “Then I realized there was more of a need for it.”

Positively Arts started with “Project Dance,” which brings professional dancers to math and science classes to help illustrate difficult concepts. The programs have expanded from there, including script-writing and acting classes, musical-instrument donations and visits from Strip entertainers at the schools.

Mondays Dark is expected to have a huge impact on the organization, Simpson said. 2017 was the first year the organization brought in over $50,000 in revenue.

“For us, $10,000 is huge. It’s money that we’ve never had access to,” Simpson said. “We can offer it to our greatest-need students. Now we can buy them instruments or dance lessons in their favorite studio near their house … stuff we’ve never been able to do before.”

Nov. 5: Children’s Heart Foundation

Congenital heart defects are the most common birth defect in the United States and affect about 40,000 births per year, according to the Children’s Heart Foundation.

The Las Vegas-based charity has been providing financial, emotional and educational support to families of these children for 14 years, said Executive Director Kelley McClellan.

“Twice as many children pass away from a heart condition as all the childhood cancers combined,” McClellan said. “It has a big significance in our community; we just don’t know much about it.”

McClellan said, “$10,000 is obviously a ton of money for us to help our families. That can help a couple hundred families, for sure.”

There’s also no greater gift than that of marketing for a nonprofit, she said.

“That’s how we go about securing more donors,” McClellan said. “We couldn’t be more excited.”

Contact Madelyn Reese at mreese@viewnews.com or 702-383-0497. Follow @MadelynGReese on Twitter.