Music4Life Adds Riverview Public Schools
SEATTLE: Music4Life has announced it is adding the Riverview School District as its eleventh program to receive musical instruments at no charge for use by students in-need. Riverview serves east King County students in the Duvall / Carnation area.
The Seattle-based non-profit acquires instruments from adults who no longer need them and decide that their highest and best use is to put them back into play. The Music4Life Donor Form must accompany the instrument. Music4Life started in 2007 by providing ready-to-play musical instruments to Seattle Public Schools. Since then programs have been added for Highline, Shoreline, Edmonds, Everett, Northshore, Bremerton, Auburn, Kent, Marysville and now Riverview public school districts.
Riverview Superintendent, Dr. Anthony Smith, shared his excitement about adding the Music4Life program to Riverview’s student support programs: “As a former music teacher and professional musician, I am especially excited to be accepted as Music4Life’s eleventh school district program. This aligns with the Equity, Access, Inclusion lens we are using for everything we do as a public school system. Thanks to Tolt Middle School band teacher Mike Stone and community member Beverly Jacobson for helping make this collaboration possible.”
Research shows that students who participate in school-based instrumental music activities do better in math, science, history, literature, international languages, reading and writing, even in computer science, in addition to what it teaches in terms of teamwork and self-discipline. “Not all children want to participate in instrumental music activities, of course,” says Co-Founder/CEO David Endicott. “But for those who do and whose families cannot afford a musical instrument, they are effectively barred from getting the full basic education guaranteed them by the Washington State Constitution. And the sad fact is that, in today’s economy, many families cannot even afford to rent a musical instrument. So Music4Life is just as much an education program as it is an instrumental music program.”
