Give to the Cleveland Junior Tamburitzans

A Letter from the President at Our 2022 Annual Concert

Cleveland Junior Tamburitza (CJT) has been in existence for over half a century thanks to the dedication of our families, the love of our culture, and assistance from our patrons and friends. After a long hiatus due to pandemic restrictions, this has been the first full year CJT has been back in full force! However, this has been by far the hardest time in history to keep this large group together because of that. CJT has been very fortunate to have such a large group, which allowed us to start practicing again early on, to continue allowing our children and families to have a strong bond that will last a lifetime. Most of our members start at 5 years old and will stay in the group until they graduate from high school! A big thank you to all of our members and their families!

It takes a village, as they say, to preserve the Croatian Culture and finance a group of this size. The Board of Trustees, which consists of all volunteer parents and the families of our members work hard to finance and fundraise everything we need. We've held raffles, online sales, merchandise sales, and much more! We are most grateful to our sponsors, patrons, and friends for any donation that we obtain to assist us in making large purchases, especially instruments, and costumes. With the generous assistance of Dragica Vurbic, we have had many costumes made and sewn as some of our costumes are beginning to fall apart due to their age. We have had to start purchasing new costumes from Croatia, which is a large undertaking as they can rage upwards of 10,000 dollars for the latest set. However, these costumes will be part of the group for the next 30 years. In an effort to ensure we have costumes that fit all of our children and can withhold performances, we have begun a small campaign to replace costumes over the next 5 years – we would greatly appreciate any donation. Your donations will go a long way and you will see the beautiful costumes and instruments the kids receive at every performance!

Thank you to everyone for supporting our group and for any donations given to either further our plan for costume and instrument replacement, or towards our Scholarship Fund. We appreciate all the support!

Sincerely,
Josie Tomljenovic, President

Donations are accepted on this page using a credit card or bank transfer. In addition, checks may be mailed using the address below or via Venmo.