This article is promoted/partner content and not produced by the editorial staff.
The fall is always filled to the brim with philanthropic and charitable events, from luncheons to fashion shows to concerts. Rarely does one have the opportunity to write “Duck Race” on their calendar. But, this year, AFA is giving you the chance to adopt a duck and watch it soar — we mean swim — to victory.
This isn’t some event to quack at. AFA’s Bayou City Duck Race will take place at 10 am on Saturday, November 8 at Bayou Park at East River, a new location close to AFA’s home in Houston’s East End. AFA’s seventh annual rubber duck race will feature thousands of ducks racing to victory on Buffalo Bayou. The first 10 ducks to cross the finish line will receive one of the event’s fabulous prizes, and additional lucky ducks will also be randomly selected for prizes.
Prizes include a cash prize of $2,500, performing arts tickets, restaurant gift cards, Raising Cane’s for a year, private wine class for 20, Houston Zoo passes, subscriptions, Niko Niko’s gift cards, and more. For only $5 per duck, participants have the opportunity to further music education across Houston by supporting AFA’s Play It Forward Fund which awarded $200,000+ in assistance to 95% of AFA’s students last season. The event will also feature performances by students from AFA’s Chamber Music Academy and En Armonía, AFA’s partnership with the Houston Symphony, as well as members of the Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts’ Mariachi Los Pasajeros Ensemble.
And the event is for a ducking good cause.
AFA was founded in 1993 to break down barriers that exist in music education and enrich lives through music. The organization impacts more than 2,300 beginner to advanced young musicians in grades three through 12 each year from 18+ school districts and 145+ schools across the Greater Houston area. AFA provides programming at schools, community centers, in-house, and at its flagship Summer Music Festival. The Festival has been hailed as a model for intensive music education programming, serving more than 300 young musicians each summer.
Diversity is incredibly important to the group, as it reached 49 percent of underrepresented groups on its faculty and 79 percent of its students last season. 95% of AFA students receive financial aid through AFA’s Play It Forward Fund. One duck can make the difference in ensuring young musicians have access to musical experiences that will shape their future forever.
Oh, what a duck can do.