This month, San Diego Foundation announced a historic, unrestricted $100 million legacy gift from San Diegan Jay Kahn, who recently passed away at age 90.
In announcing the gift – the third largest of its kind to a U.S. community foundation and the largest of its kind to a San Diego nonprofit – SDF honored Kahn’s memory and his love of music with unrestricted $150,000, multi-year grants to 10 San Diego-based music education nonprofits.
Below, watch and listen to stories from some of these nonprofits to learn how these grants will advance their work with under-resourced children.
The Guitars and Ukes in the Classroom mission is to elevate student engagement, and expand the role of music in education by making purposeful, inclusive music a joyful and integral part of literacy, academic, and social-emotional learning throughout the school day, and beyond.
They accomplish this by training and equipping inspired educators to integrate hands-on music and songs for learning with classroom instruction, activities, transitions, support services, and building classroom communities.
This unique, developmental approach nurtures creative and effective teaching practices through free weekly professional development (PD) courses in ukulele, guitar, and classroom implementation, as well as capacity-building co-teaching artist residencies, intensive workshops, in-service trainings, conference presentations, after school music clubs, and specialized services in adaptive music for inclusion.
Launched in 2016, Heartbeat Music Academy provides affordable after-school music programs in preparation for enrollment at Historically Black College and Universities (HBCUs).
According to founder and CEO Tyra Hawthorne, the nonprofit gives underprivileged kids a chance at a unique musical journey.
“I named it Heartbeat at the time because I felt like we were living in a world where kids were dying, but not physically — emotionally, mentally. They were just lost,” Hawthorne shared during an ABC 10News San Diego interview. “So, I just felt like if anything, I could kind of revive a lost culture with music and that’s how it started.”
The David’s Harp Foundation mission is to inspire, educate, and empower system-affected and homeless youth to achieve academic success through music education, sound engineering and multimedia production.
David’s Harp serves system-affected and homeless youth to achieve academic success through music education.
Read and listen to this KPBS Midday Edition story about David’s Harp’s gift from SDF and Jay Kahn.
Click the links below to learn more about the remaining Jay Kahn Fund inaugural grantees and their impactful work.
Learn more about Jay Kahn’s life and lasting legacy.
On August 9, 2022, we awarded $838,704 in Opening the Outdoors grants to 24 nonprofit organizations that offer equitable access to outdoor spaces in San Diego County.
“San Diego Foundation is proud to once again support its partners committed to increasing community-driven efforts to enhance accessible outdoor space, encourage youth to learn more through hands-on education and create the next generation of environmental stewards in the San Diego region,” said Christiana DeBenedict, SDF Director of Environment Initiatives.
This year’s grantees will help address these inequities and enhance access to the outdoors throughout San Diego County.
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