Music and Stories to Cheer Seniors and Hospital Patients.

Please find below a list of virtual/remote opportunities for volunteers to continue reminding Seniors that we are grateful for them. Hospital patients and staff will be heartened by your music and stories. These activities are designed to be completed in the safety of your home during Quarantine for the time being (ending when MCPS and all MD/VA schools return to normal status). If you are interested in volunteering, please complete the following steps:

• View the orientation video at our website: https://www.tacyfoundation.org/pages/about-us
• Complete (guardians only) and submit the waiver/release form attached to this opportunity or available on our website: https://www.tacyfoundation.org/pages/about-us
• Attend one Orientation via telephone Conference Call.
• Select one or more of the projects below to complete.
• When an assignment is completed, send as an attachment in an email message to the Teen Intern, to the email address indicated on the attachment given to you for Orientation, and to Charlotte Holliday, at[email protected].

Here is a list of many different virtual/remote opportunities that you can complete until schools return to normal status:

1. Find music that has great meaning for the seniors (songs from 1940s to 1990s). Use the time you would ordinarily spend practicing for an event to learn at least one or two songs. You will be ready to share these favorite songs when the doors open again. During this Fall season, addFall and Winterrepertoire to your list of music to bring after Quarantine. (1 SSL hour)

2. Draw a picture depicting the Summer season for the seniors. Include a crossword puzzle for them to keep their minds sharp. Write a rhyme and picture. Reflect on their importance to your life by their great contributions through history (from 1940s to the present). Send these to the Teen Communications Intern for the Foundation. There have been many adventures from your generous, heroic efforts, and they are so beautiful to read. Sharing your thoughts with other volunteers will embolden them to overcome their fear and hesitancy. Sharing them with adults and seniors reminds the seniors that they are important. It is their privilege to pass down to YOU the great work ethic, sense of purpose, and experiences in grappling with emergencies that they have learned during their lifetime. During this silence from seeing them, we will ask the Communications Intern to receive these writings and place them on Facebook. Most seniors have access to Facebook. They can see their young music friends messages of concern and of thanks for their lives. We will also mail your messages to them either via email or USPS. (.5 SSL hour)

3. Make and send your music video of music in public domain on YouTube performances. 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: I miss seeing you, so I would like to play this song for you now... (1 SSL hour)

4. Write a thoughtful, encouraging email message to a senior. Let the senior know how he or she has reminded you of courage and strength during hard times.

You may refer to theBeethoven story written and illustrated below by Faber Piano Adventures. (See web site below on this email message.)

https://beethoven.pianoadventures.com/?mc_cid=fe4353e2fc&mc_eid=4e5fc455a7

Tell him or her that you are studying about another hero (besides the senior) who has helped you. In other words, share with seniors in an email message to them to encourage them to be strong and to have hope.

Send your letter to the Program Manager: [email protected]. She will send your letter or story to the seniors in all of the places where we play music. They will see our video playlist too and will look forward to the time when COVID is over and we will return to them.

1.5 SSL per email letter. 5 full paragraphs of expressive, encouraging connection between the struggles of Beethovens life challenges and your experience so far in the pandemic of 2020.

5. 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, or another 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. Your writing may bring peace of mind to someone in a senior facility or a hospital who cannot express the sadness or the despair. Stories are the best medicine for reminding us of the inestimable value of paying forward our hope for others through music. (1 SSL hour)

6.Write about your Piano Pals or Guitar Pals or Reading Express experiences.Your Reflections may be about a particular life lesson you gained in this setting. Tell about how your Title 1 student saw the world throughhis 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)

7. Assemble USBs for shipments to NYC's First Responders as well as hospital patients. Place USBinto plastic pouches with insertsas a donation (1 SSL hour per 100 USBs)

8.Design GET WELL cards for patients.When we ship USBs, we will place your card in the box to the hospital. You will need paper and paint/crayons/color pencils for this.Whatever art supplies you have are fine. Make these generic without reference of religious belief. Hospitals request this. (1 SSL hour for 15 cards)

Design CHEERFUL THANK YOU cardsfor hospitals, First Responders, and the military families that will receive Tacy Foundation USBs at Fisher Houses, and First Responders. (1 SSL hour for 15 cards)

9. TheReading Express Virtual Library: Make a video recording of a children's book, a fairy tale, orYour Own Storybook of holidays in your family. Show the pictures on the camera as you read the book. Nomatter 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)

11. Virtual Live Music via YouTube Video Concerts(in Virginia & Maryland) of Music. Prepare songs to play live on YouTube. Chief Interns will place on a private playlist. 45-minute programs are to be sentto Seniors Facilities that request video to be viewed at any time that is convenient for each facility. Look for Signup.com opportunities. Prepare any classical and or public domainsongs to cheer each listener! 1.5 hour SSL Credit.

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 until schools resume normal status.