South Side Sounds

I've gotten a lot of really good questions (and some fantastically generous donations!) about the Donors Choose blogger challenge I wrote about yesterday, but by far the most common is "what should I do?" There are a lot of options, so let me make it easy: Let's help kids on the South Side of Chicago.

Help Us Listen to the Music is a great example of how you can participate. A teacher at Cassell Elementary school writes:

In the upcoming year I would like to have a music listening center in the classroom where students could go and listen to music of various genres, styles, and composers. Eventually this music listening center will include classical music, Jazz, world music, early childhood music, and electronic music. While at the music listening center, students would analyze and describe music, identify instruments, recognize musical elements in music, and complete other listening activities.

All you've gotta do is chip in a few bucks. Throw in the five bucks you were going to spend at Starbucks today, or chip in $25 bucks to buy a couple of CDs. And as I mentioned yesterday, I'll personally match 10% of whatever you donate -- if ten of you pony up $30, we'll have this proposal covered and kids from kindergarten up to 8th grade will be making their first steps towards learning music appreciation and music theory.