March 2015 Jennifer Maxwell and D'Addario Foundation again support us

We have much good news to report since December 2014.

The Jennifer Maxwell Foundation and the D'Addario Foundation have renewed their supporting partnerships with Sticking Up For Children in 2015.

We've been able to move forward with contributions to four beneficiaries: the FEPE (Foyer Espoir Pour les Enfants) orphanage and school in Port-au-Prince, Haiti; the NOYSE (New

Orleans Youth Sound Experience) classes in sound-recording for youth, Make Music NOLA and its after-school instruction to youth playing stringed and brass instruments; and the Kuumba Insitute of the Ashé Cultural Arts Center in New Orleans.

Our most time-consuming involvement between December 2014 and February 2015 was partnership in the 504K Run and Festival for Our Music, staged on Sunday, February 8 in the Marigny and Bywater of New Orleans.

More than one thousand runners, walkers, and dancers participated in the 504K Run that Youth Run NOLA produced, an increase of about 200 rom 2014. Our long-time ally WWOZ provided two Jazz Fest Brass Passes, won by two lucky entrants. Beneficiaries from the Run apart from Youth Run NOLA were Make Music NOLA and McDonogh 35 High School's music programs.

Sticking Up For Children produced the Festival for Our Music on a lot donated by Reily Foods. We engaged drummers Alfred Roberts.

and Alexey Marti and Acadian musicians Louis Michot and Korey Richey (Lost Bayou Ramblers), Ashlee Michot and Cameron Dupuy for the Main Stage and the trio of Alex McMurray, Joe Cabral, and Carol Nuccio for the Regions Bank stage on-course. Students from Make Music NOLA and McDonogh 35 also played for the Run and Festival.

It was a very good day! More complete stories are up at wwoz.org/run and our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/stickingupforchildren

We've began to talk with sympathetic folks in Baton Rouge and Lafayette about expanding Music & Arts Days across southern Louisiana.

We've added to our Board of Directors Kavanaugh Farr of Strip-Ease of New Orleans, Leslie Bertucci of Aquarian Holdings, and Paul Siegel, manager of the Pedro Martinez Group. They're all great, highly astute and well-connected people, and we're delighted that they've joined us.

Much more to come, right around the bend!