City of Hope's Adopt-A-Family Program

Here comes the sun… and the ukes! We had the opportunity to donate 10 ukuleles (from Twisted Wood Guitars) and lesson materials to City of Hope for their Adopt-A-Family program — an initiative that supports patients and families who are facing treatment during the holiday season.

Through this program, generous employees and community sponsors “adopt” a patient or family, learning about their needs and wishes, and helping make their holidays a little brighter. Many families come from out of state and spend the season at the Hope Hotel, so every bit of comfort matters.

We’re so honored that these ukuleles will become part of that joy — bringing music and moments of peace. Thank you City of Hope for the amazing work that you do.

Harmony Project Donation

Another day, another uke donation! Last week we donated 10 beautiful ukuleles provided by Twisted Wood Guitars (our generous friends from Canada) to The Harmony Project!

The Harmony Project is LA’s largest community-based, music-focused non-profit organization. They’re dedicated to providing world-class music education to students in traditionally underserved communities.

Thank you to Miguel for coordinating this donation!

Shriners Children's Hospital Ukulele Drop off

We recently donated 10 ukuleles, cases, tuners, picks, and lesson materials to the Music Therapy department at Shriners Children's in Pasadena! Shriners is dedicated to providing innovative care to children with specialized health care needs around the world. Touring the updated facility was incredibly inspiring - from a new sports medicine department to a gorgeous music therapy room. We’re so happy to be a part of the Shriners family!

Thank you to Kala Brand Music & KHS America for providing us with these beautiful instruments

New Partnership with Music & Memory!

MUSIC & MEMORY® is a service of the Institute for Music and Neurologic Function (IMNF), a leader in advancing the therapeutic power of music to awaken, stimulate, and heal. Through the use of personalized music playlists, they help individuals with a wide range of cognitive and physical conditions engage with the world, ease pain, and reclaim their humanity.

We are inspired by their goal of making the therapeutic use of personalized music a standard of care throughout the health care industry.

We have donated 10 ukuleles—with cases, tuners, and lesson materials—to their headquarters in New York. These instruments will support their ongoing work with older adults living with dementia and other cognitive or physical challenges.

Music & Memory will provide training for our volunteer team on using personalized music playlists to support quality of life, equipping our volunteers with an additional tool to enhance mood, reduce anxiety, and strengthen relationships within our senior communities.

Together, we look forward to supporting the therapeutic use of music for individuals in residential care communities, at home, and throughout the broader aging-services landscape.

For more information about their incredible work, visit:
https://musicandmemory.org/

UCLA Ukuleles

Heartstringz donates ukuleles to UCLA Health's Integrative Medicine Collaborative music therapy program. The ukuleles will be utilized for the adult palliative care program for usage onsite. Patients will also have the option of having a ukulele in their room at all times and can take a ukulele home for therapeutic playing well after discharge. We are honored to bring the joy and music to UCLA Health patients.

Wrapping Up 2023

Heartstringz had an amazing 2023 and we wrapped it up with a visit to UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles on December 20th. UCLA’s Health Integrative Music Therapist, Jenna Bollard, joined us as we went room to room to sing holiday songs to the incredible children and families of Mattel. We also brought jingle bells and tambourines that the children were able to play along. Watching the children sing, dance, and clap along to our music was truly magical. It was an afternoon filled with pure holiday joy!

Thank you to our volunteers Carly Placencio, Colette Mendoza, Tom Rowland, and Julie Rowland for coming along to sing, jingle, and spread holiday cheer. We look forward to continuing our mission in the new year. 

Spreading Holiday Cheer in Brooklyn

On December 9th, we had privilege of preforming holiday songs at Concord Nursing home in Brooklyn, NY. We had the best time singing and chatting with the lovely residents at Concord. I was joined by two of my good friends and Hearstringz oldest volunteers - Sam Bloomfield and Sam Yu. It is extremely special for us to be singing again together especially during the holiday season.

In the featured picture, we have Concord resident John who joined us to sing "Baby It's Cold Outside." We also gave out jingle bells to some of the residents to play along with us. We had the best time!

-Natalie Rowland, Founder

Connecting with the Teddy Bear Cancer Foundation

For the past couple of months we have formed an amazing connection with Teddy Bear Cancer Foundation. They advocate for families living in Santa Barbara, Ventura, and San Luis Obispo counties that have a child with cancer by providing financial, educational, and emotional support. One of Teddy Bear’s values is the commitment to cultivating an institutional culture based on health and wellness, which really inspired our partnership in healing through music. We have donated six ukuleles to three families with children battling cancer along with providing free, weekly Zoom ukulele lessons. They ukuleles range in colors depending on personal preference - blue, purple, pink, etc. It has been such an honor getting to meet and bond with the children and their siblings as well as teaching them the invaluable skill and joy of learning a musical instrument! It has been the brightest way to enter winter by learning holiday songs and theme songs from their favorite TV shows and movies (like Spongebob and Spiderman). Everyone at Teddy Bear has been so loving and generous with their time and loving attention to us at Hearstringz and the children they work with. Thank you Teddy Bear!

You can learn more about them at their website here: https://www.teddybearcancerfoundation.org/