I enjoyed my experience so much last summer that I am going back this summer! In addition to my tuition, I am a proud supporter of The Litchfield Jazz Camp.
Founded in 1997, Litchfield Jazz Camp now serves 70-150 residential and day students each week for 1 to 4-week sessions on the campus of The Gunnery, an independent boarding and day school in Washington, Connecticut. Run by Litchfield Performing Arts, a charitable organization dedicated to changing lives through music, the Camp’s philosophy is simple. We start with a faculty of amazing and inspiring jazz musicians. To that, we add eager music students in a non-competitive program.
I am a proud supporter of the NYC chapter of Guitar for Vets.
Guitars for Vets is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization founded in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 2007. They currently operate more than 80 chapters in 40 states with the assistance of over 200 volunteers nationwide. Over the past seven years, the organization has refined a guitar instruction program aimed at providing Veterans struggling with physical injuries, PTSD and other emotional distress a unique supportive program. G4V pursues its mission to share the healing power of music by providing free guitar instruction, a new acoustic guitar and a guitar accessory kit in a structured program run by volunteers, primarily through the Department of Veterans Affairs facilities and community-based medical centers.
In 2017, I was named a Top Student Ambassador fundraiser for the Celiac Disease Foundation’s Team Gluten-Free. This is a community fundraising program that is designed to raise awareness and funds for the Celiac Disease Foundation’s programs for research, education, and advocacy.
I became interested in this cause because I have several family members and friends who are diagnosed with Celiac Disease, a genetic autoimmune disorder that results in damage to the lining of the small intestine when foods with gluten are eaten.
I capped off my fundraising for this cause in April 2017, when I played a set of songs, including a 50 song Rock Medley, at Hard Rock Cafe in the heart of Times Square and raised more than $1,000 for the cause.
I also raised money for a charity called Playing for Change. Playing for change is a movement created to inspire and connect the world through music. The foundation raises money to create and share music from around the world. 15 music programs have been created in Bangladesh, Brazil, Ghana, Mali, Nepal, Rwanda, South Africa, Morocco, Mexico, Argentina and Thailand. More than 2,000 young people attend free classes in dance, instruments, languages and musical theory, all taught by qualified local teachers.
That is me, in 2016, with my acoustic guitar in front of Trader Joes on the Upper West Side, Manhattan. Many pedestrians stopped to listen to my tunes, and threw their own change into my guitar case -all of which I happily donated to Playing for Change!