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"Music is a more potent instrument than any other for education”. Plato Find us on Facebook
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 | KEYS’s mission is to bring one-to-one instrument lessons and group music instruction to under-served inner-city children in Bridgeport, CT who have no other access to this empowering life experience. |
 ACCOMPLISHMENT
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KEYS provides private cello, piano, violin, viola, clarinet, flute, trumpet, alto sax and classical guitar lessons and conducts music awareness, music fundamentals, group recorder, group drumming and other classes, both after-school and during the summer. KEYS provides mentors, role models, teachers, and a means for its students to develop intellectually, culturally, and socially. Music teaches them to believe in themselves and gives them a reason to stay in school. |
 MENTORSHIP
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KEYS is dedicated to providing free quality music instruction: From literacy preparation and academic achievement to performance ability and community building, music is about education. Music may be the reason a child stays in school. It teaches children how to excel and helps prepare them to be productive citizens. Music instruction should be a part of every child’s education. All children deserve this opportunity. Music instruction enhances academic achievement, develops important skills like goal-setting and organization, and builds self-esteem, qualities essential to breaking out of the cycle of poverty. |
 DISCIPLINE
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Education without music is incomplete: Bridgeport’s public school children are deprived of a meaningful musical experience because of budget constraints. Even though it lies in the heart of affluent Fairfield County, Bridgeport schools have some of Connecticut’s poorest performing schools, so its children start out behind the curve, attending inadequate schools in a state with the country’s worst academic achievement gap, frequently living at or below the poverty line. Parents are unable to provide music lessons or instruments. |
 COMMUNITY
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Four kids in a hallway: Rob Silvan, a musician with over 35 years of experience, started teaching four Bridgeport children at Columbus School in 2004. The school lacked a piano and music room, so he taught his students in a hallway on a keyboard he provided. The demand by other children for music lessons was immediate. Today, KEYS is working to meet this demand. A team of experienced professional music instructors, supported by excellent volunteers, give free private and group lessons to over 400 Bridgeport children. |
 HOPE
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KEYS needs you! KEYS, a 501(c)(3) organization, receives no government funding and relies on donations, foundation grants and volunteers. KEYS has no office to maintain and keeps its administrative costs low. KEYS needs: - funding for teachers, instruments, transportation, and workshops - volunteers to work with children - volunteers to host fundraising concerts - donations of gently-used instruments. |