Hello Friends,

Here at Pianos for People we've completed another successful Piano School year and are looking forward to a summer of expanded free piano camps. It was a historic year, as we added new after-school programming locations in East St. Louis, Illinois (Sister Thea Bowman School) and north St. Louis (The Hub). Videos of our end-of-year recitals are now up on our YouTube channel at: https://www.youtube.com/@pianosforpeople5298/playlists

We've also increased our investment in our Piano Donation Program, and so far we are on pace to reach our new higher goal of 52 piano donations (one a week!) in 2023. One particularly rewarding recent donation to Normandy High School is highlighted below.

And we have a date set for our annual Evening of 100 Fingers concert event, which will once again be held at The Sheldon this year. Please mark your calendar for Sunday evening October 29th, and stay tuned for more details to come.

As always, we are sincerely grateful to you for your support of this work and your belief in our mission to improve lives through the healing power of music. We wish you a very happy, healthy and safe summer.

Matt Brinkmann

Executive Director

Save the Date!

Mark your calendar now for the return of our annual concert event...

AN EVENING OF 100 FINGERS

Sunday, October 29, 2023

at The Sheldon.

More details to follow later this year!

For information about sponsorship, please contact Matt at matt@pianosforpeople.org

Registration is open for 2023 Summer Piano Camps!

Online registration is now open for our 2023 Free Summer Piano Camps for youth ages 7 to 16. The weeklong camps will be held in June at our Cherokee Street location and at a new location at The Hub in north St. Louis, and in July at our Ferguson location. Each session is 5 days, Monday-Friday from 10:00am – 1:30pm. Thanks to a new partnership with Operation Food Search, we will also be providing free lunches for our camp participants this year. Register online at:

https://pianosforpeople.org/music-camps/

Beginner Piano Camp 2022

New Piano Instruction Location in North St. Louis

We are proud to be partnering with Tabernacle Community Development Corporation in bringing our free piano lessons to a new location in North St. Louis. The Hub is a community service center at 3000 E. Prairie in the JeffVanderLou neighborhood, in the former Farragut Branch Elementary School. Pianos for People began offering free lessons there one day a week during the school year, as part of the many new services and resources that The Hub now provides for that neighborhood.

New Ferguson Piano School Classrooms

Over our Spring Break week March 27-31, we moved our Ferguson Piano School to a different location within the First Baptist Church of Ferguson campus. The new rooms give us expanded lesson space and a more visible entrance at the front of the building. We are incredibly grateful to the North American Mission Board, Pastor Jim Goforth and everyone involved in the transition for their continuing support of our work. And we're excited to be a part of the growing number of community services that will provided by the new George Liele Center for Mission Mobilization at the church.

A Steinway Piano Donation for Normandy High School!

On April 28 we were thrilled to be able to fulfill a dire need for a better grand piano at Normandy High School in a big way! That request coincided serendipitously with a very generous donation offer of a beautiful Steinway Model B piano from Unity Christ Church. So on April 28, we facilitated the donation from the church to the school and delivered the Steinway to it's new home at Normandy, where we hope it will inspire the students with beautiful music for years to come. This was piano donation #383 for Pianos for People, meaning we are on pace to reach 400 later this year!

You can watch a video of the donation on our YouTube channel at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KARrotQcJZ8

Welcome Our New Piano Teachers!

Sara Mullins

Sara is currently earning her Bachelors in Music Education at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. She has also studied Adolescent Psychology at SIU-Edwardsville. She has actively played the piano for seven years in numerous studios under the direction of Cathy Boemler and Alla Voskoboynikova and is also a French horn player. Sara currently teaches our Beginner Piano class at the Sister Thea Bowman School in East St. Louis and at our Cherokee Street location.

Andrea Rohlehr

A native St. Louisan and University of Kansas graduate, (Bachelor of Music Education), Andrea briefly taught elementary and middle school music with the St. Louis Public and Confluence school districts. She resided and worked as a full-time musician, recording artist, (9 CD’s) and piano/vocal instructor, (YTI Youth Theatre Interactives) in New York City for many years. She is also a singer/songwriter, flutist, self-published children’s book author and visual artist (The HumAnnity Collection). Andrea is the proud mother of two.

Sara Mullins

Andrea Rohlehr

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