INTAKE Music Festival Summer Camp

UUA Grant/Fund for Social Responsibility

UUC has just been awarded a challenge grant in the amount of $5,000 from the Unitarian Universalist Association’s Fund for Social Responsibility to sponsor INTAKE Music’s week-long summer camp for 60 Latino students to be held in our Sanctuary.  Last year, the summer camp students not only focused on their music, but were also taken on field trips to the Stamford Museum and Nature Center, Ferguson Library, and Government Center, where they played for the Seniors at the Senior Center and then Mayor Martin joined them and actually played with them!

This program will help the children maintain the skills they have learned during the school year, introduce them to resources in the community that that they might not otherwise be aware of, and provide members of our congregation an opportunity to meet these children and their parents and learn more about their culture and needs.

Our partnership with INTAKE is enriching our own lives in many ways.  Thank you, Bob Sanders, for tutoring a student needing help with math problem-solving, whose parents are from Ecuador and Guatemala.  Theresa McConoughey is donating a guitar, and Bonnie Currie is enjoying her connection with a high school student from the Dominican Republic with language needs.   Other mentors would be welcome!

Since it is a challenge grant, we will need to raise $5,000 in matching funds, including at least $1,000 from a UU crowd-sourcing website called Faithify.  Getting this endorsement from the UUA is wonderful and will help us in our efforts to seek additional funds.