By Jennifer Eisenbart
Editor
When it came Monday night to approve donations to the Burlington Area School District, two different donations on the list had everything to do with music – just as those donating it wish it to be.
A pair of pianos – serviced and tuned – have been donated to the district, and are already at use at Burlington High School and Dyer Intermediate School.
In addition, an $800 grant was awarded to Cooper Elementary School so the group “Opera for the Young” – which teaches opera to elementary school students so they can perform alongside an opera company – can come to the school early next year.
In total, the two donations came to more than $3,000, paid for by the non-profit Burlington organization Music Matters – a group that helps support music organization in the Burlington Area School District.
Since its founding in 2010, Music Matters has awarded more than $40,000 to those seeking grants to fund music education. The grants are given out twice a year on a limited basis to further the group’s mission statement: supporting and promoting youth music education.
“We use an evaluation rubric which assigns points to various aspects of every grant application,” said Karen Tolle, one of the leaders of the organization. “We use community members to help the board of directors evaluate grant requests in order to remain acutely aware of what our community values in music education.”
The group was founding in response to BASD threatening to cut a band director position within the school district back in 2010. A group of supporters asked for time to raise money to make up the difference in what was a shortfall in the BASD budget and continue to fund the position.
The group could not technically fund a staff position, so the money has taken the pressure off other funding sources.
Examples include:
• Sixteen Suzuki soprano xylophones at about $250 apiece for use primarily at Dyer Intermediate.
• Sound equipment for Burlington High School for use at concerts.
• $2,200 toward the purchase of music rights and general support for last year’s spring musical at BHS, “Les Miserables.”
• $1,500 toward support of the 2013 Artist in Residence at Cooper School, funded jointly by Music Matters, Lavelle Industries and the Coffee House at Chesnut and Pine.
• $6,000 for the “Drumming Up Character” program for students in grades K-6 at Waller, Cooper, Dyer, Winkler, and Lyons.
And those are just the big ticket items. The group has also paid for piano tuning, shelving for orchestra instruments and sheet music for various performing groups.
“We do plan to continue to award grants which broaden and enhance the music programming available to students,” Tolle said. “We are entirely driven by the needs of our students and schools.”
For more information, contact Tolle at (262) 534-5694.
-
-
-
-
-