Description
2025 Winter SSL Opportunities for youthsponsored by The Tacy Foundation
Here is a list of many different In-Person and remote opportunities that you are invited to choose during the Winterseason:
Find, learn, and play all styles of musicthat have great meaning for the seniors (songs from 1940s to 1990s). Bring them to senior facilities and to hospitals during the Winter season, including Holidays in December-May. Use the time you would ordinarily spend practicing your regular songs to learn at least one or two of seniors favorite songs. You will be really surprised by the appreciation from seniors and hospital visitors. They will smile and hum the tunes when they hear their favorite music from bygone years. Add winter and holiday repertoire to your list of music: music of their youth will be so very uplifting to them. You will be (1) performing these songs in-person, (2) and/or making a video of the songs you have learned (public domain only for videos) to place on the Playlist for hospitals. Send to:[email protected]. MCPS requires that students earn SSL hours for the time spent performing (or recording), not for the time spent practicing or rehearsing.Design Seasonal Cards for hospital patients andseniors.Make these generic to be received by any of the recipients above.Due date TBD. When we ship QR code Cards, we will place your message and card in the box for the hospitals where we play live music: Holy Cross Silver Spring, Holy Cross Germantown, Walter Reed NMMC Fisher Houses, National Institutes of Health, Suburban Hospital (Hopkins), Sibley Memorial Hospital (Hopkins), Frederick Health, Shady Grove Adventist Hospital, and Howard General Hospital (Hopkins). You will need paper and paint/crayons/colored pencils for this. Whatever art supplies you have will be fine. Make these cards generic without reference to religious belief. Hospitals request this. (1 SSL hour for 15 cards). Write to: [email protected] for information and answer to your questions.
Please do not include any personal information (full name, home address, phone number, email address, etc.Make and send your music video of music (nonreligious)on YouTube. We will offer your music to the Activity Directors (of seniors facilities) as Virtual Live Performance. You are allowed to speak clearly your message to seniors: Thank you for all that you have done for the community. I would like to play this song for you now..... Send to [email protected]. The length of the video should be 15-20 minutes of music at least. 1 SSL hour per completed, accepted, and uploaded Video.Write (and or) illustrate a particular memorable momentwhen you played music at a hospital. Perhaps someone came up to you and thanked you. Maybe a family had just heard a very sad prognosis, or a family was happily bringing home a newborn baby, a family was bringing home a loved one from a hospital stay. As they always do, they stopped to hear your music. Another time, perhaps you saw people enter the lobby through the big doors and turn toward the music and sigh a deep breath of hope and courage. Write a descriptive piece on this. Holidays and birthdays are very mixed. They are markers of family traditions with joys and sorrows. Your writing may bring peace of mind to someone in a senior facility or a hospital who cannot express the sadness or the despair or the joy of a surprise visit of a loved one. Stories are the best medicine for reminding us of the inestimable value of paying forward our hope for others through music. (1 SSL hour). Send to[email protected]and/or[email protected]. Please do not include any personal information (full name, home address, phone number, email address, etc.)5. Write about your Piano Pals or Guitar Pals or Reading Express Your Reflections may be about a particular life lesson that you taught this fall or last year during the holiday season. Tell about how your young student saw the world of holidays through his or her eyes. Your writing may reflect (1) a change in your idea of community service, (2) what you discovered that you did not know before you taught (Write about this in regard to the children whom you are serving), and/or (3) the importance of music in the lives of the children you are working with. It may include a particularly difficult challenge that you faced or are facing in working with children. The piece may be about how you discovered a side of yourself you had not known before these music classes. Relate how you would like to take what you learned into the world to share with others and to serve again. (1 SSL hour after it is published online or in the Newsletter). Send to[email protected]and/or[email protected].
The Reading Express Virtual Library: Make a video recording of a children's book, a fairy tale, or Your Own Storybook. Show the pictures on the camera as you read the book. No matter how difficult life becomes and how trapped a child feels, he or she can go anywhere in the universe with a book or story. Reading to a child can take him anywhere, bring her hope and joy in any life situation. BE SURE THE STORY IS IN PUBLIC DOMAIN or contact the publisher directly first to receive written permission to make a video of the story. (1 hour SSL) Write to [email protected].[email protected].See the separate Listing for Live Music In-Person for 26 senior facilities and for hospitals in the Nation's Capital Area.See separate Listings for:Piano Pals for Elementary school children,Guitar Pals for Elementary school children, and Piano Pals for Seniors.
Student participation in the above service projects is at the discretion of the students parent/guardian. The nonprofit organization is responsible for maintaining student safety and privacy. The nonprofit organization will determine the number of SSL hours awarded based on the evidence submitted. Parents/guardians should contact the nonprofit directly with any questions and/or concerns. The above service activities are designed to be completed within the safety of the students home. Consent Forms for Virtual Learning by 501(c)(3) organizations (The Tacy Foundation) must be signed by the parent prior to enrollment. No exceptions.
