Story #1 – Our Founder’s Story

Our Founder’s Story

 


We never know where our stories will lead us.
Telling our story often leads to wondrous new stories…and so many stories still to tell.

– Sarah Martin McConnell

Marguerite (Marge) Martin, my mother, was blown from the Mississippi Gulf Coast to Nashville by Hurricane Katrina in August, 2005. Mom was 84, a widow, and recently diagnosed with mid-stage Alzheimer’s. The storm was traumatizing. So for distraction and fun on our turbulent drive north, we sang together: a Martin family tradition.

First we sang to the radio. Then we sang hymns, camp songs and others, like There’s a Hole in the Bottom of the Sea and The Prisoner’s Song (my grandfather’s favorite). We sang songs from every musical I could think of, followed by standards from the 30s and 40s my parents taught us along with the jitterbug. I exhausted my entire folk repertoire (which is vast). We sang It’s a Long Road to Freedom. (Remember the Singing Nuns?) “When you walk in love with the wind on your wing and cover the earth with the songs you sing, the miles fly by…” The miles did fly by as we laughed and sang music as bright as the light of that summer afternoon. Our hearts were lifted and we made it home: exhausted, happy and calm.

After she settled in with my husband Mickey and me, we realized Mom could not stay home alone. Plus, she needed opportunities for socializing with her peers.

A search led me to Senior Citizen’s Inc. (now FiftyForward) Adult Day Services. The staff was so welcoming. Mom waited eagerly for the van to pick her up at the house each morning for weekdays filled with activities, lunch and shared camaraderie. In short order I began volunteering, leading monthly sing-alongs with the group, accompanying us on guitar or dulcimer. It was such fun singing the songs they knew and loved. We told stories. They made requests. They sang, clapped, tapped their toes and stood in a circle – some holding onto their chairs – for our favorite finale, The Hokey-Pokey.

I witnessed remarkable transformations. Mom and her companions would light up: animated, joyful and engaged – laughing, singing and dancing together. That’s Mom in red singing with her friends.

Walking out into a glorious fall day after one of these programs, my heart was buoyant. Energy radiated through me. The wonder and kinship that resulted from the simple shared music experiences with these frail and beautiful individuals, my own mother among them, was sublime. A flash of perspicuity: a divine gift from the universe. I realize that these are the most important performances I have ever undertaken. My next immediate thought, “There should be an organized effort to enlist and pay musicians for this meaningful work.” Nashville’s musicians, one of our richest creative resources, would participate as significant civic involvement. Connecting, through music, with overlooked and often-isolated seniors across the area. A win-win-win: enriching the lives of older adults, area musicians and our entire community.

I was working part-time then as a freelance paralegal for attorney Aubrey Harwell. I told him about my idea and, in a most Aubrey-centric way, he took a deep breath, straightened his back, crossed his arms over his inflated chest and pronounced, “Sarah. That is a fantastic idea. You need to put your business plan together and pitch it to Janet Jernigan [then Executive Director] at Senior Citizen’s Inc.”

So I did, and – in the spring of 2007, with our first grant ($5,000 from Metro Nashville Arts Commission) – Music for Seniors launched as an affiliate program of the city’s premier senior social services agency. Over the next seven years, I created, developed and grew the impact of three live music programs: Interactive Outreach (with seniors in residential and care settings – like Marge’s group); our FREE Daytime Concert Series (monthly concerts by local artists of distinction and curated especially for older adults, scheduled when and where they can easily access them); and Live Performance Learning Labs (series of group lessons in ukulele, percussion, harmonica and, our newest, songwriting).

In 2014, Music for Seniors spun off to begin operations as a stand-alone 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization in new offices at Nashville Public Television. Starting over again, with just $5,000 in the bank (again), this time with “transition” funding awarded from The Memorial Foundation.

In 2019, after winning a WeWork Creator Award ($50,000!) to seed our national expansion, we launched our first chapter affiliate, Music for Seniors Knoxville. In 2020-21, during Covid quarantines, we pivoted all of our programming to virtual and outdoors.

Now, in 2022, we have an extraordinary new executive leadership team to launch another dream into reality: of Music for Seniors chapters across the country. After all, there are talented musicians and underserved older adults in every city, county, neighborhood. I envision their joyful shared music resounding across the world: connecting and enriching all participants, uplifting lives and, in doing so, connecting, enriching and humanizing the life of their whole community.

 

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