The History of Saturday Night Out
In 1989, artist and clothing designer, Donna Riggs, worked as a misses sportswear designer for New York City-based, Tian Collections.
In 1991, Donna designed, produced and sold fashions from her clothing line, Oh Donna!, to Home Shopping Network. Her hands-on involvement included pattern making, sample production, sales, and supervision of the production in San Pedro Sula, Honduras.
In 1994, Donna opened a boutique called Girlfriends, selling her fashion designs, upscale sample lines from major designers, and custom-made clothing.
After returning from New York City, where some of her fashion designs were modeled by soap opera stars in a fashion show benefit, Donna was asked to lend some of her clothes and costumes to a group of ice skaters in Nokomis, Florida. for an ice skating show. That is where it all started, a fashion show on ice.
In 1995, Repeatedly asked to do fashion shows, Donna did not want use her new clothing items for this purpose. To accommodate the requests, she called about a dozen of her customers and asked them to model clothing purchased from her shop and luncheons. Response was positive. The volunteers enjoyed a lunch, the camaraderie and the concept was readily accepted and evolved into the first Saturday Night Out production.
Donna did not believe that traditional runway modeling could hold the interest of a diversified audience for very long, so the concept of combining a fashion show with performing arts was born. Through Donna's venues, she has presented all facets of the arts to a public that might never chose, or have a chance to see them.
Donna has given local, professional talent the opportunity to perform in front of huge audiences. Through non-professional volunteerism, she has made an entire community aware and respectful of the energy, commitment, expense, and importance of supporting performing arts.
Taking the goal one step further, Donna has tried to help smaller organizations raise money for their own projects by giving general seating show tickets to schools, clubs, and groups that could keep 100% of the sales profits, and have an option other than pushing candy bars and gift wrap for a percentage. (See Fundraising)
Saturday Night Out, Inc. has been bringing high quality performing arts to the Florida West Coast for more than a decade. The mission is to support the performing arts and all that is involved in its production, while making the experience available to the community. It is a vehicle that enables other organizations to garner funds from the venues without depletion of their own limited finances and profits.
