Shoreline City Council expresses support for Music4Life program

By David Endicott, President / CEO

The Music4Life™ Program

Following is a copy of a letter we have just received from the Shoreline City Council regarding our Shoreline Schools Music4Life™ program, which seeks to provide public school students with musical instruments. 

Our Governing Board is grateful for the unanimous support of Mayor Keith McGlashan, Deputy Mayor Chris Eggen and all five other Members of the Shoreline City Council. The united opinion of the Council in this letter speaks for itself. But we do believe that this worthy work, coming at a time of significant regional and national economic challenge, needs to be done so all our children can benefit from a good basic education that includes participation in instrumental music activities, if they wish and regardless of current family financial situation.

We are particularly grateful to Shoreline City Councilmember Shari Winstead, a donor who organized this expression of the Council’s opinion. Any Shoreline resident who wishes can join Shari and the rest of us in making this initiative into a reality.

October 28, 2013 

To the Citizens of Shoreline, 

Thanks to the efforts of Superintendent Sue Walker, we have become aware of the Shoreline Schools Music4Life™ initiative and what it is doing to assure a broad, fair and basic education to all our children, regardless of any family’s current economic condition. 

Research now shows that students who study instrumental music tend to do better in math, science, history, literature, languages (both foreign and English), even in computer science and other desirable academic disciplines.  This is in addition to the discipline and teamwork learned through participation in instrumental music programs. 

We’ve even heard that students with dyslexia (estimated as high as ten percent of any given population) can perform better because of instrumental music. 

Shoreline Music4Life acquires “lovingly used” musical instruments from adults who no longer need them, gets them fully restored and ready-to-play and then provides them free-of-charge to Shoreline Public Schools for use by students of low income families.  Given adequate resources, Shoreline Music4Life can even purchase new musical instruments for use by low income kids. 

Given the state of the economy and to the extent that low income students can’t participate because their families can’t even afford to rent a musical instrument, Shoreline Music4Life becomes just as much a worthy “education program” as it is a music program. 

Based on the recommendation of Superintendent Walker and the entire Shoreline School Board, we endorse the efforts of the Shoreline Music4Life program and encourage other local community leaders concerned about education for all our kids to learn more about it. If you have a lovingly used musical instrument that’s just gathering dust in your garage or attic, donate it to Shoreline Music4Life. Tell your friends, family, neighbors or co-workers about it. There are other ways to support Music4Life, as well. 

This truly is a program worthy of the support of us all. 

Sincerely 

Keith A McGlashan, Mayor

Chris Eggen, Deputy Mayor 

Doris McConnell, Councilmember 

Will Hall, Councilmember  

Jesse Salomon, Councilmember

Chris Roberts, Councilmember

Shari Winstead, Councilmember

Updated 11-12-13 10:24pm