What does your business do?

We Sing For The World is a private music studio that provides voice and piano lessons to children and adults in the New York and Connecticut areas. In addition to the lessons, we offer exciting themed workshops, mini camps and benefit concerts featuring members of our studio as well as local artists to raise awareness of important issues in our community. In 2015 we presented a total of 6 concerts for different nursing homes and hospitals in New York City and Westchester county.

During the summer we travel to Costa Rica to offer music lessons free of charge to the community of Santa Ana for one full month in partnership with different organizations and schools in the community. In addition to the lessons we plan on presenting concerts free of charge at nursing homes and hospitals featuring members from the program as well as special guests from the Santa Ana community.

How would you use the grant money?

The money will be used for our upcoming trip to Costa Rica in July. We intend on bringing 3 American music teachers residing in the U.S. The grant money will pay for some of the room and board expenses of the three teachers. Any additional costs include sheet music provided for the students as well as transportation for our teachers within Costa Rica.

What would the grant enable you to do that you can't now?

The grant will help us pay for the expenses of the third teacher. In the past two years we have presented these workshops with only two teachers serving a total of 45 students. Having an extra teacher will facilitate the schedule and will help us provide longer lessons and more detailed attention to each student.

If Idea Cafe's Grant helps your biz reach greater success, how will you "pay it forward" to help others in some way?

We believe in sharing our talents as musicians and teachers with people who do not have music available to them. We intend to continue with our free concerts, lessons and workshops for our community and other communities around the world. We intend to expand our international workshops to other communities in Costa Rica and other countries around the world.