Musical Welcome Kits 

Since its inception, HeartBEATS has been delivering music kits to refugee children across Phoenix in partnership with The Welcome to America Project (wtap.org). We have shared over fifty music kits with young refugee families in the last year. These kits of joy not only connect volunteers with their newly arrived neighbors during the delivery, but they can be instrumental in bringing together families through the universal happiness music provides. Family members and friends, young and old, can shake, tap, and jingle while singing or listening to songs they love. 

 

A favorite music kit story of ours happened in December of 2019. One of the truck drivers from The Welcome To America Project was also the father of a recently-arrived family to whom we delivered a musical welcome kit. A week after the delivery, he approached one of our volunteers and expressed his family's gratitude for the instruments. He also shared how much he enjoyed the addition of music to their home and how his children played the instruments at every opportunity...his youngest son even brought the handheld jingle bells whenever their family went out. The amused expression on his face as he shared his family's experience was a reminder of the simple joy music can bring to all of us. 

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If you are interested in helping us create more music kits for young refugee families, you can visit our Amazon Wishlist at the top of this page. We also collect new or gently-used larger instruments for elementary, middle, and high school students. Please contact Riley at heartbeatsaz@gmail.com to arrange pick up!