By Jessica Baron | Executive Director
Dear Friend and Supporter,
I hope you will take 2 minutes now to read this important update. Thank you so much for generously supporting our work bringing music to life and learning for young children ages 3 and above. The amount of assistance you've collectively provided in this campaign over the last couple of years has allowed us to put early childhood music into 38 preschool and TK (transitional kindergarten) classrooms.around the U.S.
But something new and very promising has taken place. In 2026 we were asked by a countywide Head Start agency to adapt our training and supplies for the use with children birth to three in early Head Start programs, and we've happily accepted. Language learning starts very early.
Training the Early Head Start teachers to use songs to help very young children develop listening, learning, and language skills has been remarkable so far. The babies respond to music with energy, attention and curiosity. They are easily calmed by songs. Toddlers want to hold and play the ukuleles and they vocalize with their early language while they pluck and strum the strings with delight. The 3-year-olds are playing a beat, making up their own songs. and playing the instruments independently during free time! Both indoors and out in the playyard, music in our 10 pilot sites is making time fly, and learning soar.
But these centers are extremely underfunded and the federal grants that support Head Start for low-income families nationwide have been cut dramatically throughout the last 2 years. We are in a national childcare crisis.
This project aims to create something so effective, valuable, affordable and scalable that any early learning program can adopt it, and improve the quality of child care with the presence of music in the hands of everyday caregivers. The key ingredient are the instruments. We have a grant now from the National Endowment for the Arts to train the teachers for free this year. But we do need your help providing the ukuleles.
All gifts of $100 or more on July Bonus Giving Day is going to increase the impact of your donation and our capacity.P This is honestly essential to the success of this revolutionary program right now!
Each of the Early Head Start program only has 2 ukuleles. That is all we can afford to give them. One is for the teacher to lead songs, and turn board books like Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See into songs children "read" and sing. The other is shared by up to 14 children. The indestructible and disinfectable Waterman ukulele's that we buy for this centers cost us $53 each plus shipping. If you can donate a $100 we can purchase two ukes and GlobalGiving.org can help us make up the difference.
If $100 is not in the cards right now, we will internally match any smaller gift under $50 with a Board of donation. One of our board members, Marcia, put some money aside for this purpose. It takes a village and we are very glad to be part of the GlobalGiving.org community!
Thank you for making miracles happen for everyone involved!
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By Jess Baron | Executive Director
By Jessica Baron | Executive Director
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