A little over a year ago MaryMargaret and I were walking our dogs and she told me of her idea.  She wanted to buy the gift of music to kids at the hospital. “I think it will help them during those procedures they have to get and when they are bored” she told me.  I was all for this concept as I could tell she was passionate about it.  She dubbed it “Music for Life” and we went forward in holding many different events in support of it.  Well a year has passed and it is time to purchase the MP3 players.  She has raised $3,114.44 for this project!  We are looking to purchase as many MP3 players (w/ adapters) as we can for this amount.  We are going to prepopulate the players with music.  Nicholas Giordano is a 13-year-old hero who plays classical guitar and he offered to give us a sampling of his music. Cowbell Digital Music (@CowbellMusic on Twitter) is an Australian company that provides digital streaming music.  They are offering us as many free downloads as we need to populate all the players. (That is AWESOME – thank you!!)  As soon as we have purchased and preloaded the music, MaryMargaret will deliver them to Children’s Hospital.

We are looking for corporate sponsors to step up and match the amount MaryMargaret has raised.  Maybe you know someone at SanDisk or Best Buy that can also give us a DEEP discount on the players so we can purchase more of them.  This is a very trying time for both the child and the parents — we are hoping that we can make their stays just a little bit more comfortable.  If you think you can help with this effort, please contact us directly here.  Thank you.

At risk of appearing self-serving I think it appropriate that we feature MaryMargaret (my daughter) as our first hero.  After all, she is the cofounder of the organization and Kids Are Heroes would not exist if it were not for her.

MaryMargaret has always been an advocate for animals.  I guess that can be attributed to the fact that she has grown up with pets in the family.  At the age of nine years old she had a birthday party.  Instead of gifts she asked that people send donations to the Defenders of Wildlife.  She truly wants to prevent certain animals from becoming extinct, especially the orangutan.  In the spring of 2006 her two-year-old Bernese Mountain Dog named Charlie founded Wags for Hope which is a local pet therapy organization.  Often times she would accompany Charlie and her dad on visits to the nursing home.  The residents would be thrilled with her cartwheels and other antics.  I remember one night whan a lady came out of her room as she prepared for bed.  She wanted to pet Charlie.  MaryMargaret said to her, “I like your pajamas!”  The lady replied, “You do? Would you like to see my other ones?”  And before you knew it MaryMargaret was in the room rummaging through drawers to the woman’s delight.

In March of 2008 she came to her dad and asked him to build her a web site. “I want to help animals” she said.  Her dad suggested they help people and the environment as well.  On that day Kids Are Heroes was born.  This is a web site that promotes and inspires kids to become involved in their communities.  She works with her dad to find heroes for the site and to promote it.  She is frequently asked to give presentations about it to which she  gladly consents.  In June of 2008 she and her two friends held a lemonade stand in downtown Frederick.  With the proceeds that totalled $600.00, she bought Webkinz which she distributed to the kids at a local cancer camp one month later.  In November of 2008 she again gave up her birthday presents. This time the party was a sleepover so she had kids bring new bathrobes, pajamas and slippers to be donated to the Frederick County Community Action Agency.  At about the same time she came up with her latest project which she dubbed Music for Life.  She aspires to buy 150 MP3 players and distribute them to kids at the Children’s Hospital in Washington DC.  When she was just six years old, she had a very scary stay there as we were told she could have leukemia.  She was poked, prodded and tested for five days.  She is okay now but she really wants to give the gift of music to those kids so they can listen to their favorite songs before and during certain procedures so they might be less afraid.  She has held several fund raisers, “twitterthons”, spoken at several venues and has many more similar activities planned throughout the summer.  She has collected over $1600.00 so far. (If you would like to donate, please click here.)  She has been awarded an opportunity to attend the Junior National Young Leaders Conference sponsored by the Congressional Youth Leadership Council.  In April 2008 her web site was “pitched” to Sir Richard Branson as part of his new Pitch TV concept.  Five winning pitches would be included as part of the inflight entertainment on all Virgin Atlantic planes for one month.  Her web site was indeed chosen as one of the five winners. We can only dream of the opportunities this will bring.

MaryMargaret is ten years old and just getting started.  She is very excited, humbled and proud to be included with all the other wonderful kids on the Kids Are Heroes web site.

Now that our first major Music for Life fund raiser is behind us, I am really looking forward to the next one. This one is a much more family friendly event which fits in very well with everything MaryMargaret is doing.  On Sunday, March 22nd, there will be three seatings at the Holly Hills Country Club for a really great breakfast event.  The South Mountain String Quartet will entertain us, as will several young musicians.  MaryMargaret, the cofounder of Kids Are Heroes, will be on hand to play her violin.  She will be joined by a 10-year-old harpist, as well as other young pianists, singers and violinists.  The featured performers will be the Bransa Trio, led by violinist Brian Kim (pictured here).  Brian recently won the Young Artist’s String Competition sponsored by the Frederick Symphony Orchestra.  He is bringing a pianist and a cellist along with him. I can’t wait for that as it will be amazing!  Now that won’t take away anything from the other performers, however.  They are all at different places in their musical journeys, but every single performance will be endearing and wonderful to watch.  The web site has details of who will perform at which seating, so please choose the one you wish to attend carefully.  Each seating will include the South Mountain String Quartet and performances by three young musicians. For more details and to register, please visit the Music for Life section on the Kids Are Heroes web site.

UPDATE: This was a WONDERFUL event. Here is a sampling of the entertainment. Everyone was outstanding!!

MaryMargaret was pleased because she got to play her CD’s for everyone – after all the event is called “Music for Life”.  So the Jonas Brothers and Ally and AJ echoed through the chilly night air. We danced a bit to both keep warm and entertain the local traffic.  There really weren’t many people out down at this end of town, but I was pleased to see MaryMargaret running after people that were walking by and hand them flyers.  We had a visit from a photographer from Frederick Magazine who took our picture.  Apparently this will be about the “Frederick Gives Back” theme to the whole Gallery Walk so it might earn us a bit of extra press.  It was nice to hear that many people had heard of Kids Are Heroes and some even had read the article.  Two gentlemen came by and MaryMargaret handed them a flyer.  They told her that they had read the article and came out specifically to see her.  As they were introduced they told her it was an honor to meet her.  (Proud dad beaming in the background.)  One of them dropped a $50 dollar bill in her donation bucket. 

Later on a young girl came up seemingly by herself.  She looked to be about the same age as MaryMargaret.  MaryMargaret went to her and showed her the flyer.  I was a bit out of earshot, but I did hear the words “Yes I have been on your web site” and “This is AWESOME!!”  The mother then appeared with her 4-year-old son and introduced herself as Laura G.  I recognized that name immediately as she had contacted me the day the article came out asking how her daughter could be involved.  She is from Lovettsville, VA (about 25 miles away) and they also made a special trip to see MaryMargaret.  Little 9-year-old Julia saw the Kids Are Heroes web site and has all kinds of ideas swimming in her head as to what she plans to do.  She wants to help her local animal shelter.  I asked her how will she raise the money and she said, “By singing!”  She sings in a local chorus and she plans to get her friends involved as well.  She is also excited about singing at MaryMargaret’s Music for Life brunch in March.

So all in all the evening was a great success.  In these times, it is especially difficult to ask people for donations.  There are so many people asking that some people are jaded as we indeed witnessed last night.  But the passion was very quick to return as we see how inspired people are by what she is doing.  This is truly going to be a fun project.

MaryMargaret has dubbed her new initiative as “Music for Life”.  As you might guess this ‘raises the bar’ a bit as far as the level of financing that will be required to meet this goal.  If Apple does not offer a deeper discount for the iPods (our goal is 80 iPod Nanos), we will be targeting just over $12,000.00 to be gained by June of 2009.  This will require some creative fund raising on our part – suggestions welcome in the comments section.  We have planted the seeds for some already, as this venture will require a lot of effort and planning.  MaryMargaret is committed to this project and will be there every step of the way.  Stay tuned as we update her progress.

11/11/08 Update to this story:
The Frederick News Post has asked me to be a ‘Citizen Blogger’. This could not be better timing as I plan to track and show MaryMargaret’s progress every step of the way on this project. This new blog will be devoted almost exclusively to this cause, so stay tuned – I will let everyone know when it gets started.

12/24/08 Update: Since iPods require iTunes accounts, we didn’t want to complicate the lives of these kids any further so we changed our target to MP3 players.  The good news is that with the same amount of money we can award all 160 campers with their own MP3 player!  That is our new goal.  Track MaryMargaret’s progress!