Instead of asking for money or food, the Progressive Efforts for Advancement and Change in Haiti (PEACH) will be asking for keyboards, saxophones, trombones and other musical instruments that will be donated to the Hope on a String organization.
Hope on a String is a non-profit organization that operates a resource center in the Corail area of Arcahaie, a small town 32 miles from Port-au-Prince.
“Music drives daily life in Haiti,” said Bennett Rathbun, co-founder of Hope of a String, who explained that music is influential in creating a better life for Haitians.
While saxophones, bass guitars, guitars, amps, trombones, keyboards, keyboard stands, drum kits and any general percussion or music stands are requested, they will accept any instrument.
. “[These instruments are] just the main focus because we have actual people in Haiti who can teach these. If you have a flute that you don’t use, we’re taking it,” said PEACH coordinator Theresa Alphonse. “Any instrument that’s not on here, we’re still going to take it.”
Alphonse hopes students will donate instruments they may have once dabbled in, but don’t use anymore.
“I know in fourth grade everyone wants to join band,” she said. “They start this instrument and then they drop it and it’s just lying around in your house and you’re taking it for granted.”
According to Rathbun, the presence of Hope on a String, which was founded this past summer, has revitalized the community.
“There’s a lot of positive energy in the community that wasn’t there before,” said Rathbun.
The resource center run by Hope on a String offers English lessons, leadership seminars and community response in times of need.
“These are people who don’t really have jobs; they don’t have steady forms of income,” said Alphonse. “Jobs are really hard to find in Haiti at this time. Giving them a way to escape their harsh realities through music is something that they’re going to take with them and … have it forever.”
She continued, “I feel like people are looking at this like, ‘Oh, why aren’t you donating food or clothes or something like that?’”
But volunteers, such as Alphonse, have seen firsthand the strong role music plays in the lives of Haitians.
“Something as simple as donating an instrument will mean the world – literally – to these people,” Alphonse said.
Rathbun introduced Hope on a String to campus earlier this semester, and this project is one of its first big undertakings. Members of PEACH hope that students will take advantage of the break to pick up their old instruments while they are at home.
“We made it post-Thanksgiving purposely so that people could go home and get their instruments,” Alphonse said.
PEACH will be accepting donations in the Campus Center on Nov. 28 to 30 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Sarah Fonder can be reached at [email protected].
