My Nonprofit Reviews

DEEP has been working to ensure children are ready for kindergarten and reading at grade level by the end of third grade - long before our current embrace of the reading process they use. Their summer reading program limits children’s learning loss and introduces them to a deeper understanding of arts and science, and tie it to literacy. Their work has produced great results with top ranking for all their schools in reading. This is in the southeast communities of San Diego, where most are second language learners. No better non profit, no better reading organization.

I am an alumna of the San Diego Children’s Choir. I joined the choir in third grade and
remained a chorister for 10 years, until I graduated from high school. Many choristers
loved the choir because it offered incredible performance opportunities-- we sang every
year with the San Diego Symphony in concert halls that never stopped feeling
enormous, we opened major San Diego conventions and sports games, we toured
nationally and internationally, and participated in choral festivals with young choristers
from all over the world.
These exceptional experiences are important memories of my childhood. But I realize
now, in retrospect, that which has yielded the greatest lasting benefit and pleasure was
the process by which I was trained as a musician and community member: the weekly
rehearsal. Without realizing it at the time, I was being trained in not only music theory,
but in the art of communal effort, the art of listening, the art of committing sustained
energy to a process in which the payoff was not always immediate.
I learned how to place the needs of the choir and the choral sound above my own, and
how to apply my specific skills in aid of a greater cause. When, in the course of choral
training, we first began singing in multi-part harmonies, I was consigned to the alto
section. I had soprano envy. I was convinced that they had the best melodic lines and
the most important parts. I now realize that this was the best thing that could have
happened to me as a singer-- as SDCC founder Polly Campbell explained to me when I
voiced my disappointment, a naturally good ear for tuning and harmony is underused
unless well-trained. Singing internal parts and counter-melodies creates sensitive
singers, attuned to the whole choral voice. It trains the mind and the ear to work in
concert with others, and the individual to value the sound of many voices above the
sound of his or her own.
Now a Soprano, I find myself thankful for the training that I received as a chorister in
the San Diego Children’s Choir. It continues to serve me well. Through college I sang
with La Jolla Symphony Chorus, and now as a doctoral student in history at the
University of Chicago I perform with multiple semi-professional organizations. Choral
singing has given me tools that I use in all facets of my life, as a student, a teacher, and a
performer.