Park City teen turns love of theater into opportunity for Utah students

Zoey Stender, a rising junior at Park City High School, founded the Spotlight for Joy Opportunity Fund to support performing arts education in underfunded Utah public schools. The organization will host its inaugural gala Sept. 12 at Hale Centre Theatre in Sandy. Photo:

Park City High School junior Zoey Stender founded the Spotlight for Joy Opportunity Fund to help bring performing arts education to schools with fewer resources

PARK CITY, Utah — At 16, Zoey Stender can already trace some of the most formative parts of her life to a theater stage.

Now, the rising Park City High School junior wants more Utah students to have the same opportunity.

Stender is the founder and executive director of the Spotlight for Joy Opportunity Fund, a new organization created to raise money for performing arts education in Utah public schools. The fund will hold its inaugural gala Sept. 12 at Hale Centre Theatre in Sandy, with proceeds from the event slated to support theater education in West Valley City schools.

For Stender, the idea grew out of her own experience.

She spent much of her childhood in the Egyptian Theatre’s youth theater program in Park City, where grant funding at one point made classes free and accessible to students. She took advantage of as many classes as she could.

“I basically lived in that little studio basement when I was growing up,” Stender said. “That really furthered my development as a performer and also as a person.”

When she later moved into Park City High School theater, Stender saw what another infusion of financial support could do. A grant helped the program purchase equipment including tap shoes and microphones and allowed the theater department to expand, she said.

Those experiences showed her that money invested in the arts could translate directly into opportunities for students.

“I was kind of truthfully sitting in my room, and I was thinking of ways that I could give back and do what others had done for me,” Stender said. “And that is where the Spotlight for Joy was born.”

The organization ultimately hopes to support public schools across Utah. For its first fundraising effort, however, Stender said the focus will be on schools in West Valley City.

The organization is still finalizing which programs will receive money from the inaugural gala. Stender said organizers are considering Granger High School and a middle school that feeds into it.

In choosing programs to support, Stender said the fund looks at financial need, including the number of students receiving assistance, but also considers the strength and enthusiasm of a school’s theater community.

She said she has encountered teachers and students with plenty of passion but not always the resources to match it.

“There are so many kids, and there’s so much passion and talent and interest,” Stender said. “Sometimes there’s just really not enough resources, or not enough opportunities, or not enough free programs.”

But Stender said Spotlight for Joy is about more than creating the next generation of actors.

The organization centers its mission around four ideas: life skills, community, expression and belonging.

“Theater is so much more about singing and dancing,” Stender said. She said performing arts programs can teach students to communicate, empathize, express themselves and develop confidence.

The most important piece, she said, may simply be giving young people a place where they feel they belong.

“Theater programs are really where the kids who are looking for their spot in the high school or looking for their people, that’s really where those kids find themselves and find a place to be themselves,” she said.

Launching a fundraising organization while preparing for her junior year has also given Stender a crash course in persistence.

She said much of the work has involved asking repeatedly for donations and support, knowing that many requests will go unanswered.

“You’re gonna ask 10, 20 people before one person says, ‘Yeah, I’ll donate,’ or ‘Yeah, that sounds cool,’” Stender said. “But it’s really about just keep pushing through it.”

The Sept. 12 gala will reflect the organization’s emphasis on joy. Stender said the evening will feature performances by local young people and auction items, and guests are encouraged to wear bright colors and costume jewelry rather than treating the fundraiser as a traditional formal gala.

The organization is also seeking donors to sponsor tickets for educators who might otherwise be unable to attend.

Stender remembers the fund’s first donation: $12 from someone she knew through theater.

“It almost made me cry because it was our first donation,” she said. “Every little bit of support, every ‘keep going,’ means the world to us.”

For Stender, that small donation carries the same idea that inspired the organization in the first place: Giving a young person access to theater does not necessarily require a grand gesture.

Sometimes it simply takes someone willing to back the stage.