MUSIC TO MY EARS - MTME
What started as an annual free family concert to celebrate the joy of music and the power of hearing evolved into the Music To My Ears program in 2019. The program goal is simple, bring high quality music enrichment programs and music education to deaf and hard of hearing children in the Chicagoland area and provide those programs tuition-free for our students and families.
The different parts of the music program build upon each other, giving children of different ages, abilities, and needs ways to access the benefits of music on their speech, cognitive, and social development while removing financial, linguistic, and cultural barriers.
For children with hearing loss, music education provides the added benefits of easing language acquisition and reinforcing normal hearing patterned speech. Coupled with speech therapy, exposure to a music education can ease language production in deaf and hard of hearing children. Through these programs FHSR’s goal is to give the joy of music to deaf and hard of hearing children and all the lifelong benefits of having music in their lives .
FHSR was so very excited to welcome back kids’ music legend Laurie Berkner for our FREE in person Cheers for Ears concert.
We were able to gather kids with hearing loss and their families for an outdoor fun interactive concert and crafts with singing and dancing to music with new and old friends.
We were so happy to gather families who have children with hearing loss together at Laurie Berkner’s concert at Ravinia to rekindle community, make new friends and sing and dance together.
MUSIC TO MY EARS (MTME) SCHOLARSHIP
FHSR honored the Foundation’s 60th Anniversary with the creation of the Music To My Ears Scholarship Program (MTME). This program provides a year of tuition-free music classes for deaf and hard of hearing children in Chicago and the surrounding suburbs. FHSR is proud to partner with The Merit School of Music andThe Old Town School of Folk Music to provide music enrichment classes for children up to four years of age and instrument lessons for children up to 10 years of age.
The MTME program represents FHSR’s unwavering commitment to be the leader in programs that enable children living with hearing loss to be on par with their hearing peers. A $900 donation will sponsor a year of classes for one deaf/hard of hearing child. This amount will allow a child who might not otherwise be able to afford weekly music classes experience the joy of music with their hearing peers.
HOW IT BEGAN
My Ears (MTME) was our annual free family concert, Cheers for Ears. Created in 2012, Cheers for Ears celebrates the powerful intersection of hearing and music, bringing children with hearing loss together for an afternoon of entertainment and community. Music not only provides an opportunity for the kids to connect with each other, it opens the door to so many possibilities.
