Bette Midler's Stages for Success: 'Every Kid Deserves A Chance To Sing Out'

When she stars in the recently announced Broadway revival of HELLO, DOLLY! next season, Bette Midler will be playing the beloved charmer who has always been, as the Jerry Herman song says, "a woman who arranges things."

But Midler herself is a woman dedicated to putting her hand into worthy causes. Her Jeckyl Foundation, named for, as she describes her, "one of the greatest and most influential garden designers of the 19th and 20th centuries, Gertrude Jeckyl," helps renovate public parks and gardens, supports theater, dance and music programs in public schools, assists homeowners with rebuilding their storm damaged homes, helped secure the acquisition of thousands of acres of sacred Sioux lands and provided critical financial support to health organizations working in Haiti.

The Jeckyl Foundation's newest project, Stages for Success, is a campaign devoted to modernizing outdated and dysfunctional public school auditoriums. Naturally, this a cause very close to the heart of the multi-talented star who made her Broadway debut in the original production of FIDDLER ON THE ROOF.

The project has renovated four schools so far and is hard at work on its newest project in Ft. Greene, Brooklyn.

Bette Midler herself has pledged the make a 2:1 match on every dollar raised with Stages for Success' current on-line donation drive hosted by CrowdRise. (Click here to contribute)

Learn more at thejeckylfoundation.org.