Happy Holidays!
Wow — what an exciting year it has been for Kids Rock Cancer! It is amazing to see how much Kids Rock Cancer has grown over the past year, so let’s take a minute to recap some pretty spectacular moments in 2017.
EVENTS
We kicked off 2017 with a bang during 1000 Saints at Maryville University. Eight rock stars performed their hit songs to a packed arena before the Maryville Saints took the court for two exciting basketball games. The event raised over $15,000 and gave Kids Rock Cancer a chance to celebrate its 1,000th participant!
Our rock stars also had opportunities to perform during a screening of “Moana” at Ballpark Village, summer concerts at Faust Park and 105.7 The Point’s Eat and Treat event at Chesterfield Amphitheater.
Club Rock, Kids Rock Cancer’s young professionals group, continues to grow leaps and bounds. In 2017, Club Rock hosted a fundraising event at Howl at the Moon, raising almost $5,000 with more than 200 young professionals in attendance.
Up next, November’s Cool Together benefit concert — our annual signature event — was an incredible night of entertainment featuring give very talented St. Louis artists. The event raised over $40,000!
To send off 2017, several Kids Rock Cancer rock stars were featured Dec. 1 at the Hockey Fights Cancer Night, singing “All Together Now” as a group during the St. Louis Blues’ pregame.
ON CAMPUS
We continued our partnerships with Team Impact at Maryville University and the entire Maryville Saints baseball team showed their support by helping one of our rock stars write and record a team anthem!
CANCER SUPPORT
Along with individual support sessions, we participated in a Families Connect Group at the Cancer Support Community. Through songwriting our music therapists were able to help kids communicate their feelings about what it was like to face the challenges of a cancer diagnosis in the family.
EDUCATION
We spoke to the Hope for Tomorrow Club at Gibault High School (Illinois) about Maryville’s music therapy program and the work done by Kids Rock Cancer.
We continue to have great music therapy interns from Maryville’s music therapy program and help further their training into becoming successful music therapists!
SUPPORT IN THE COMMUNITY
Our music therapists performed and provided support to the St. Louis Children’s Remembrance Day Service honoring the lives of kids we have lost in the past year.
SUMMER CAMPS
By May, we were preparing for a total of four summer camps including Camp Rainbow, Camp Crescent, Camp His Kids and Camp Kesem (new in 2017), where we worked to support patients, siblings, the bereaved and survivors through group songwriting sessions.
NEW PARTNERSHIPS
We are so honored to partner with FormFast, which will help us derive new ways for more efficient communication and electronic documentation. This not only improves our efficiency, but will also allow our music therapists to more accurately gather results for grants, further education and research.
We also finalized a partnership with Beads of Courage so that after every session, each participant gets a commemorative KRC bead to add to their Strings of Strength, with beads representing everything they have been through regarding treatment.
In addition, we’ve added the David C. Pratt Mercy Cancer Center to our list of clinical sites! We are beyond excited about this partnership, as it will allow us to provide services to more patients and their families receiving treatment at Mercy.
We’ve formed strong new partnerships and enhanced past relationships with many organizations including the Riverfront Times, Emmis Communications, the St. Louis Blues, BioMedical Systems, Emerson, Stange Law Firm, Switch and so many more!
As you can see, it has been a year full of wonderful things to celebrate!
To date, Kids Rock Cancer has assisted in the creation of 881 songs for the support of 1,219 participants who have been helped through the process of therapeutic songwriting. Without the help of generous donors and a dynamic team, we would not exist. We are endlessly grateful for the continuous support and outpouring of love for our participants. As we move into the new year, we continue to look forward to blooming partnerships, potential new sites, increased awareness and, most important, a chance to provide more opportunities for kids and families dealing with cancer to have a voice through music. Cheers to a rockin’ year!
Warmest,
Tracie Sandheinrich
Senior Music Therapist, Kids Rock Cancer
Liz Haynes
Director of Special Programs, Maryville University