The Unity Performing Arts Foundation is making its voice heard worldwide.

Fort Wayne’s nonprofit with a focus on empowering young people will take its Voices of Unity Youth Choir to Auckland, New Zealand, for the World Choir Games in July. 

But before that, the choir will host a season finale concert at PFW Music Center on June 22 to raise money and showcase their talent for a local crowd.

“It’s a very expensive trip,” Unity founder and CEO Marshall White said. “New Zealand is an expensive country, and to fly there is about $2,700. The kids have been raising money and continue to raise money on an almost daily basis — going door to door and asking people to support them like that.”

Life-changing

Operating out of Ivy Tech’s campus on North Anthony Boulevard, Unity Performing Arts has five programs to choose from with Voices of Unity being the organization’s flagship group, rehearsing out of the Purdue University Fort Wayne Music Center.

“It’s a program that only special kids can make it through,” White said. “This is not a normal choir program. It is not a normal arts program. It’s more like a development concept. We just use the arts to attract the kids. Once they come in, we are actually developing them, shaping them, and empowering them, and preparing them for life.”

Along with Voices of Unity, Unity Performing Arts offers programs in creative writing, dance, public speaking, and leadership and development.

“If a kid joins Unity Performing Arts, he has the option of becoming a part of any of the discipline programs,” White said. “The amazing thing about it is, if they join Voices of Unity, it’s the most prestigious program, and it’s going to require a lot more out of them.

“When a kid joins Voices of Unity and sticks with it, they are very special. Very special.”

Along with learning building blocks to a successful life, Voices of Unity has enabled children to see the world. 

The choir has traveled to Shaoxing, China, (2010), Cincinnati (2012), and Riga, Lativa (2014) to take part in the World Choir Games. Along with the Games, Voices of Unity traveled to Europe in 2016, visiting Italy, Austria, and Hungary, and performing at The Vatican.

While Cincinnati might seem to be the least exotic of the locales, it was a big one for Voices of Unity.

“That was a good thing for us, because we were used as the marketing choir,” White said. “They used us to actually market The Games in America. They spotlighted us. We did the opening ceremony with superstar Kirk Franklin. It was pretty amazing. We were like stars of the show.”

Rising up

Despite having won five gold medals at the Olympic-style World Choir Games, Voices of Unity and Unity Performing Arts as a whole took a big hit thanks to the pandemic.

The time away saw many of the kids in the program become adults. As they moved on to college or the workplace, or just decided to quit, Unity’s membership took a big hit.

To return numbers to a pre-pandemic level, Unity began its Rising With Purpose campaign in 2022. That first year saw enrollment jump 68 percent.

While enrollment spiked, that meant new kids were replacing those that had sent Voices of Unity to unprecedented heights.

“This group of kids have only been together for about a year,” White said. “This is a whole new generation of the Voices of Unity. The Voices of Unity prior to COVID, they were a stellar group of kids that had been with the organization over 20 years.”

However, their inexperience does not faze White.

“What they have is heart,” he said. “When you have the heart to want to know something, all you need is the right teacher. Part of my brand has always been taking nothing and creating something from that. It wasn’t intimidating for me at all to take a group of non-singing kids and train them to become singers.”

Helping in the process are folks like June McCullough, Jordan Applegate, Jordan Bridges, and Darren Harrison, who have worked with the children.

“We have a nice team of people working with the kids, and for the alumni to come back is just really amazing,” White said.

Putting the work in

The desire of the children to help raise money exemplifies that type of youth it takes to be a part of the choir. 

“We expect and demand that they are excellent in every aspect of the lives: home, school, church, and in their community,” White said. “So, the training they receive, they have to learn to apply that in every area they go into so they stand out, in essence, to be a leader in their community.”

They have been rehearsing four days a week since January for New Zealand, where they will compete in the gospel category and perform a fellowship concert for residents. It’s that concert that we will get a peek at June 22.

“We’ve made it a really strong benefit to the kids to be able to be exposed to the world,” White said. “To give them that exposure before they go to college really helps shape their future.”

As he makes an effort to improve children’s lives, White has been working diligently to receive help financing such endeavors.

“The resources that are coming for kids that do bad is huge,” he said. “The government is plowing out money for us to manage kids that have done bad, but they’re not really doing anything for us to empower kids doing good. That’s the message I’m trying to communicate to businesses to churches to politicians. We need to invest in the kids before they get into trouble.

“We’re hoping we can get more people to support that concept.”

Purchasing a ticket to their End of the Season Concert is one way to support this concept. But if you’d like to go a step further, you can donate at riseupunity.com.