(No AI used) As a seasoned volunteer of one month at a community center called Abundant Life, my supervisors placed me in charge of a handful of children from 2-2:30pm on Fridays, requiring only that I keep them interested and docile and quiet. Having just passed Music Theory I, I knew that I had every shred of credibility needed to bring music into the lives of some unruly kids. Music school teaches you that learning all the scales means that anything that breathes will pay attention to you. On a spring afternoon in 2021 the children filed into our lounge, sitting as instructed around its carpeted perimeter. My supervisor watched closely from a corner. I unboxed my guitar, and chaos ensued. Canitouchitcanitouchitcanitouchitcani— was all I could hear until my supervisor silenced the room with a shout. At length I regained my composure. Today we will learn a song, I said amid the relative calm, strumming gently on my guitar and beginning to sing something I’d written. It was a “lilting” melody, my professors would have said. Something moody, yet hopeful, highlighting the dissonances of the IV chord with the melody line… After the first line the semicircle of children laughed in my face, crushing my musical ambitions entirely. It’s challenging to be creative in music school. Well-intentioned professors tried to instill in me a reverence for art that could only be appreciated by its most disciplined students. Only composers that were dead or nearly so were worth class time and attention. But it frustrated me that for all of the time, the money, and the rigor of a music degree, it neglected to convey its most important elements. Music does not make children docile. It makes them laugh and cry and feel and dance. It compels them to change, binds them with communicative force, sees them, knows them, all while changing macro and micro-cultures fundamentally. Childhood memories of singing and dancing with my sisters returned to me as I sat before the children. I tried again. Repeat after me, I pleaded with mock desperation. I quarreled. I cajoled. I argued and joked and spluttered until finally one of the children echoed a line I had sung. I scrambled for my guitar. Sing it again, I said, pouring every power of persuasion I possessed into Kehari’s direction. She did. That was amazing, I said. You have a beautiful voice. She beamed at me. Suddenly the room was full of raised hands and chorused voices asking for a turn. The ways I have given back to youth through music extend beyond the children of Prospect neighborhood. Personally, I have taught instrument lessons for friends and family for four years, written songs for community kids and helped them write their own. Formally, the non-profit I volunteer with in Charlottesville works alongside the Music Resource Center and MIMA (Modern Improvisational Music Appreciation), both of which provide resources tailored to young people looking for creative outlets that are challenging to find in their immediate communities. Leveraging these organizations to assist my ability to reach local kids musically has helped me tell more compelling stories of my own as an independent producer, never forgetting the feeling of hearing Kehari humming one of the songs I’d written, as the volunteers walked her home. Youth involvement in music will be in my future in a tremendous capacity for the rest of my life. This scholarship would reduce financial barriers to volunteering more in my community and enable me to continue to be a dedicated mentor for youth in my town. Thank you so much for your consideration!