Authored by: Jeffrey D. Stauffer, Executive Director –jeff@elvilleassociates.com, 443-393-7696
Your support is needed!
The Elville Center for the Creative Arts is working to make a musical difference in the lives of children throughout Maryland by partnering with school music programs and other organizations throughout Maryland. The Elville Center is helping music programs fill needs they have in their programs by providing donated refurbished musical instruments, much-needed supplies such as instruments cases, reeds and oils, fixing instruments in their inventories that need attention, and getting them the instruments they need to help their programs and students be successful. We are also working with organizations to begin music programs to bring music to students who want to play that otherwise wouldn’t have the opportunity to participate in music. We have many programs and initiatives we are working on right now.
1. Howard County Autism Society – we are partnering with the Howard County Autism Society to bring music to the children of this important community organization.
— We are working with Howard Community College and The Music Institute to develop group classes and individual lessons beginning in the fall to children with autism.
— Research has shown that music and music therapy can be very therapeutic to children with special needs, and we are working to make a different in these young people’lives by bringing the joy of music to them.
2. A new relationship the Elville Center has recently established is with Coppin Academy High School – this is a public charter high school on the campus of Coppin State University in Baltimore City. We are working with the school’s new music teacher, Jesse Williamson to:
— bring more instruments to the school
— are currently refurbishing many of the school’s instruments that are in need of repair
— have purchased trombone and flute cases along with a strap for the school’s bass clarinet
— in August we moved a piano to the school where it is now being tuned.
— we are working diligently to help Mr. Williamson get his new program where he wants it to be for the start of the school year in early September.
3. The Elville Center continues to partner with Dr. Max VanDerbeek at Wiley H. Bates Middle School in Annapolis to support his music program. Over our three-year partnership, we’ve provided 40 donated refurbished instruments to the music program, and continue to support the school with:
— additional instruments, some of which support Bates Middle and others which Dr. VanderBeek offers to his middle school feeder school music programs.
— we provide critical support by helping with the purchase of needed supplies such as reeds for woodwind instruments
— have funded buses for field trips
— on a monthly basis we support the program monetarily by helping support the cost of a student teacher that help Dr. VanDerbeek in his daily work with his students.
4. We have developed a partnership with the Empowerment Academy, which is a K-8 school in Baltimore City. The new music teacher at the school, Mr. Marcus Neal, is a teacher we’ve worked with before at another inner-city school, Franklin Square Middle. The Empowerment Academy encourages arts enrichment for all of its students, which is a unique philosophy for a city school.
–we are working to bring recorders, xylophones, and boomwhackers to the younger students, and as Mr. Neal is working to develop a band for grades 5-8 we are working to provide more standard brass and woodwind instruments to the older students at this school.
5. Another new partnership for the Elville Center is the Maya Angelou French Immersion School in Temple Hills in Prince George’s County. While the school has a very successful band and orchestral program for its older students, the school’s new teacher for its younger students and general music program, Edmond Saint-Jean, is starting from scratch for its youth program. The Elville Center is working to fulfill this program’s needs for the new school year to get the program and Mr. Saint-Jean off to the good start they deserve:
— Glockenspiel – 6
— Xylophone – 6
— Metallophone -3
— Bells/handbells 12
— rhythm Sticks -12
— Tambourines -6
— Autoharps – 4
— Bongos – 4
— Regular recorders for 3rd grades 20
— smaller recorders for 2nd graders – 20
— About 12 Half, 3/4, and regular guitars to start
6. The Elville Center also continues to work with its first-ever school partner, Benjamin Tasker Middle School in Bowie. You may recall a student at this school, a fine young man named Daniel Coleman, was listening to WBJC a few year ago and heard about the Elville Center and its mission. He contacted us to ask for help for Benjamin Tasker and the work has continued ever since. Currently we are working with Tasker to continue to develop its new orchestral program is began last year by providing it string instruments and supplies.
7. The Elville Center will be a major sponsor of the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra, a professional orchestra, this coming season and year. We will be paying for the bus transportation and tickets for hundreds of children to attend concerts in Annapolis – these children are from schools that cannot afford to pay for cultural events. This partnership with the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra will help us fulfill our mission to give children the opportunity to experience cultural events related to music they never would have experienced without some outside support.
As you can see, the projects The Elville Center are fortunate to be involved in right now are all very unique in scope. We are helping schools and organizations all over the state – Prince George’s County, Baltimore City, Anne Arundel County, Howard County – begin and enrich music programs. And, the participants in these programs come from a wide variety of backgrounds – many from disadvantaged situations that need support to participate in music, some with a special needs background where music therapy can provide them so much in their lives.
But regardless of their backgrounds, the one thing that brings them together is their desire to participate in music and the profound difference it will make in their lives.
The Elville Center needs your donations to help make these projects successful and realities. We need those instruments that you don’t have a use for anymore. We need your monetary support to help us get the supplies and instruments these programs needed to be successful.
Please consider supporting the Elville Center for the Creative Arts with a donation today. As a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation, your donation is tax-deductible, and the Elville Center will provide you a tax receipt for your records upon receipt of your donation. To donate, visit us at www.elvillecenter.org, or contact Jeff Stauffer at 443-393-7696.
Thank you for your support of the Elville Center for the Creative Arts!
Sincerely,
Jeffrey D. Stauffer
Executive Director
Elville Center for the Creative Arts, Inc.
9192 Red Branch Road, Suite 300
Columbia, MD 21045
443-393-7696
