The Starkville Oktibbeha Civic Engagement Collaborative launched a fundraising campaign for a safe shelter with some help, and laughs, from MSU’s Lab Rats improv comedy group on Thursday.
Kay Brocato, an organizer for the group and education professor at Mississippi State University, said Thursday’s event kicked off an effort to raise $10,000 in 30 days for the proposed shelter. The collaborative is a coalition of more than 30 faith-based, civic and merchant groups, and Brocato said it held a public awareness event in October at the College Park shopping center.
Brocato said the group is looking to raise money for a shelter for people in need. The type of shelter has yet to be determined, but Brocato said the group will seek guidance from other communities that already have shelters in place.
“This may become a homeless shelter,” she said. “It made be a violence survivors’ shelter. It may be for women and children. It may be for men. It may be for all of the above. But we will let the experts from our surrounding counties that already have shelters be the advisory group.”
Brocato said the $10,000 goal is a first step in what should be a longer fundraising effort.
“We felt like people would take us seriously if we could get $10,000 and we could get other big donors to match us,” she said. “We have public will, because we have people signing on. When you have money, you have more than just public will — you have possibilities building.”
Thursday’s effort featured two performances from the Lab Rats — one from 6-7 p.m. at the Mill conference center on Russell Street and one from 10-11 p.m. at Hobie’s on Main.
Donations for the shelter can be mailed to SOS-Mississippi 703 Bonnie Road, Starkville, MS 39759. Electronic contributions can be sent to [email protected]
Learning under Cleghorne
For the Lab Rats, the performances were the culmination of a week of workshopping with Ellen Cleghorne, an actress and comedian known for her roles on “Saturday Night Live” and “In Living Color.”
Cleghorne was making her first trip to Mississippi, and to Starkville, for the fundraiser, and said she was reached through a friend’s friend who asked her to be there.
During the workshops, Cleghorne gave the Lab Rats an assignment to implement what Mississippi means to them in a sketch. On Thursday, the group performed a segment called “Mississippi,” where they made observations — often tongue-in-cheek — about the state.
Cleghorne said she finds improv comedy to be a particularly powerful tool because it’s naturally inclusive and brings people together for a common goal. She said that was particularly fitting for the Starkville Oktibbeha Civic Engagement Collaborative’s mission.
“When we do improv, it’s a perfect forum for community building because the ethos or the essence of improv is that no one person is the star,” Cleghorne said, “which is the credo for democracy, I guess you could say — everybody is equal. So it’s you bring a brick, I bring a brick, we build this house together.”
Cleghorne, who called the Lab Rats a “special group,” added that she talked to them about the use of comedy and satire to bring conversations about certain issues — whether social, political or otherwise — to the forefront.
“That’s the history of satire,” she said. “When I teach a course on satire I make it clear that this is how it’s always been — that you use humor to speak truth to power and that you craft the conversation. Improv is one way. Stand-up is another. There are plays and theater — there are different ways to create this parallax view of what the world looks like from a different perspective.”
Brock St. Clair, a senior broadcasting student at MSU, said it was an honor to experience Cleghorne’s tutelage.
“Lab Rats as a troupe — and I think any organization can get this way — you have the same people around and the same ideas around and it can get like an echo chamber, sort of,” St. Clair said. ” So to have Ellen come in and give us these new ideas was very exciting because it’s sort of a break out of the comfort zone and I think that’s what improv is all about.
“Obviously the experience that she has in the industry and to ask her questions about that, and just the chance to be on the same stage that she’s sitting on is awesome,” he added.
Brocato also said she was very thankful for Cleghorne visiting and working with the Lab Rats.
“She’s legitimized so much about what our Lab Rats have been doing with their own professors but when you get a professor from another higher education (institution) to give you feedback — especially one who’s as high level as she is, it really does give you some credibility,” Brocato said.
Alex Holloway was formerly a reporter with The Dispatch.
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