Little Ukes for Small Hands in Need

Dear Friend of Young Children, and Music,

Thank you for helping us provide classroom ukes, empowering daycare workers and early childhood educators to teach language, early literacy, social skills, counting, and more to children from birth-5 years old through the power of singing songs and strumming ukes.

We are so excited to report that, with your help, GITC was able to provide starter classroom uke sets to early childhood educators serving in daycare centers, small home day care centers in marginalized communities, public agency child care settings throughout San Diego County. Teachers serving in child development centers, small and large, and from community college child development centers, public school Title 1 UTK classrooms (Universal Transitional Kindergarten for 4 year olds) have received your gifts and are already leading music!

Today, I want to share about one of these early childhood educators. Her nickname is JB. Her story is a great example of the far-reaching impact of your generosity:

JB drove 3 hours each way to attend our intensive workshops in Chula Vista, over 2 weekends. This passionate, hard-working pre-service teacher came with no musical experience, ready to try anything. She was committed from the get-go. While she currently attends Foothill College to obtain an ECE credential, she already serves as a daycare teacher for the U.S. Marines on base at Camp Pendleton. Many of the children for whom she cares are experiencing difficulties such as separation anxiety, depression, and developmental delays.

JB already reached out to ask us for support starting GITC on base. She has the capacity to bring music into this closed environment where others lack clearance. She is eager to take more GITC classes online. We are thrilled to help her realize her goal. We are hopeful we can build a relationship with the early childhood development team on base to extend this work to others serving young children there.

She says she often notices how very young children on base seem to be sad. They are in daycare for very long hours, and the base doesn’t offer much enrichment. In addition, it’s normal that one parent may already be deployed, or one or both parents are occupied in training for their future deployments each day, and sometimes long into the night. It’s a very serious environment, and personal sacrifice for military service is a daily reality. The children are along for the journey, and they deserve special care.

JB sees the potential benefits of GITC on many levels: crucial mental, emotional, and physical stimulation, practical skill building, access to making music, and helping establish a caring community where the children can feel connection and belonging. She understands our developmental approach can help them become seen and heard, appreciated, and feel safe to express themselves. She is an angel in our midst.

With your support, we were able to provide JB with a complete set of ukuleles to bring joy to learning and life to these children. Now the children are developing amazing rhythm, the ability to sing in tune, and are learning to sing entire songs. This helps them to develop their vocabulary, to state needs, ask questions, and share their feelings.With your help, we are seeing the music in early childhood revive, and hear the sound of children singing their own special songs.

Thank you for giving us a way to support JB and 265 other early childhood teachers through your charitable giving to bring music into the lives of our youngest Americans. Please stay with us, give again, and help us bring this work out of California to more regions of the country this year!

With appreciation,

Jess Baron

Founder, Executive Director

Links:

• Tiny Documentary About GITC's ECE Project