Kidsingers

To empower Orange County youth to gain singing artistry, self-esteem, and earn college scholarships, and a sense of community accomplishment through exemplary musical education and performance opportunities.

Since 1997, for the past 29 award-winning seasons, KidSingers has had a single and simple purpose: To empower OC youth to gain self-esteem, self-expression, and a sense of community accomplishment through the discipline of quality music training and performance opportunities. Though our primary demographic is situated in the midst of Orange County, the 7th wealthiest county in California, parts of OC experience “urban hardship”. Gang violence still impacts the safety of Santa Ana. In addition, the Mexican Mafia remains active (1). With this undercurrent of Santa Ana’s history stemming back from as early as the 1980s, one cannot deny that Santa Ana’s landscape is changing. With increasing gentrification coming into the core of downtown Santa Ana, much of our KidSinger demographic faces potential displacement. Along with the 4th Street railcar construction and disruption of businesses, housing prices and gentrification have taken front stage for Santa Ana voters (footnote-2,3). In the midst of this change, KidSingers continues to expand and adapt, recognizing the universal and timeless value of music education to mitigate today’s most pressing problems for today’s young people.

KidSingers plays a key part in bridging inequity and expanding equal opportunity and access to the musical arts. In the face of Santa Ana’s urban transition, KidSingers remains resilient, supporting our most vulnerable communities while creating a diverse environment where kids from various backgrounds can share the same positive experience. We recognize that the Musical Arts have tremendous value to re-humanize today’s youth, who are all equally plagued by social isolation and gun violence, magnified by social media, AI and the lack of human connection. Because of KidSingers’ universal teachings of kindness, respect, and diversity (all embedded in our core musical repertory), we are well positioned to continue our unique value add to Orange County, no matter what the future holds. All youth today, urban, rural, affluent and disadvantaged are impacted by the deleterious effects of technology over-reliance, divisive misinformation, and environmental climate degradation that exacerbate isolation and a sense of hopelessness. Before we tackle society’s collective problems, we must first tackle mastery over ourselves in the way we show up and treat one another. The rule of decency needs to be relearned and reinforced continuously. One of the songs in our core repertory is entitled “A Better You, A Better Me”, underscoring our shared accountability in co-creating the world we live in.

Generationally, KidSingers has come full circle. Those who were helped in the past are returning to lead us. In 2022, we brought on a Full-Time Program Manager, Itsai Casillas, a former KidSinger who has helped transform and streamline KidSingers’ operations. When Itsai was 16, his mother tragically passed away. The KidSingers community surrounded Itsai and his family with love and support, which later prompted him to remark that he would not have made it were it not for his KidSingers family. He has now graduated from the University of La Verne. We are so proud of his life trajectory and how much he is already giving back. In addition, we recently expanded our board to include a number of former KidSingers.

With unknown changes in front of us, we have a diverse set of minds to help us reshape everything from fundraising to how we expand access to all kids in Orange County. Since 1997, KidSingers has been the stop-gap after-school choral/vocal performance program in the Santa Ana Unified School District (SAUSD) for under-resourced youth between the ages of 8 and18. Since 2021, however, SAUSD has received a substantial boost in afterschool musical arts education support by being awarded the After School Education & Safety (ASES) grant from the California Department of Education (CDE) to serve TK-8 students in the Engage 360° program at elementary and intermediate school sites. In addition, SAUSD was awarded the 21st Century Community Learning Center for After School Safety and Enrichment for Teens (ASSETs) grant from the California Department of Education (CDE) to serve students at Century, Godinez, Saddleback, Santa Ana, Segerstrom, and Valley high schools. Many of our potential KidSingers are now being served by these California State arts initiatives. In KidSingers’ most recent auditions (May/June of 2023), two thirds of our new enrollments came from more affluent homes and families in the Tustin Unified School District. This is causing a tremendous change in KidSingers’ culture and is shifting our mission from enrolling only under-resourced youth to adding a more affluent and better resourced demographic. We embrace this shift as a way to break barriers between communities that may not have interacted in the past and will adapt our fundraising strategies accordingly.

Sources: (1)(https://abc7.com/santa-ana-shooting-gang-violence-arrest-maria-mora/12580583/) (https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/3-mexican-mafia-members-and-28-associates-charged-racketeering-indictment-alleges) (2), ((https://voiceofoc.org/2023/04/battling-to-survive-santa-anas-street-car/),(3)(https://voiceofoc.org/2023/07/recall-of-santa-ana-council-member-over-rent-control-policing-heads-to-voters/).

Coming out of COVID, KidSingers continues to emphasize in-person, live, and spontaneous interactions in the co-creation of choral music, counterbalancing excessive reliance on living in a digital reality only. While many non-profits faltered because of COVID, KidSingers held together. As one of our KidSingers said, “While our schools were giving up on Zoom, KidSingers did not.” In our 2021-2022 season, we rebooted KidSingers in-person rehearsals. With a staff of 5 choral directors, 3 accompanists, 2 interns, 1 program director and 10 volunteers, more than two hundred and fifty (260) 1-hour rehearsals were administered to prepare for these concerts. Live performances for our next season will include: LA Angels Baseball Game singing the National Anthem in July, Nixon Library Holiday Concert, Plotkin Gallery in April, and Spring Concert and College Scholarships in May. The purpose of KidSingers’ in-person rehearsals has been to re-socialize students to operate as a unified team. KidSingers serves as an essential after school program to reinvigorate and socialize school-age kids into having human interactions with each other, teachers, and leaders (such as KidSingers Directors). While academia is still researching direct links between expanded cognitive abilities and musical training (Music Cognition Lab, Princeton University), our KidSingers themselves enthusiastically have experienced qualitative benefits. 1) Virtually all KidSingers reported expanding social skills by having learned new music, performed in front of a live audience, made new friends, and visited new places. 2) 87% of participants' self-esteem increased significantly during the year as measured by both the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Instrument (the gold standard of youth self-esteem assessments) and the General Self scale. 3) 85% reported that the KidSingers program helped KidSingers become more confident about themselves. 4) 80% reported having learned to respect people of diverse cultures because of KidSingers. 5) 65% reported greater confidence speaking in class because of KidSingers. 6) 75% increased their musical aptitude and performance skills 7) 75% increased in family unity.
Sources: (1)(https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/students-worldwide-suffer-education-setbacks-from-pandemic-school-closures).

KidSingers’ five most pressing needs are: 1) funding the core music program 2) recruiting youth, not from only all socio-economic, but also from culturally diverse backgrounds 3) exploring new avenues of fundraising 4) financially sustaining the program 5) rehearsal venues. The most urgent need by far is sustained giving. Unlike many other children's non-profits such as the Boys and Girls Club, KidSingers is a grass roots organization and does not have an "umbrella" organization that provides sustainable, ongoing funding of the program. Each year, through our Adopt-A-KidSinger Challenge Grant, our corporate and foundation grant writing and our annual Benefit Fundraiser, we establish our annual revenue. This is a pay-as-you go approach that does not enable steady and reliable revenue year over year. Data suggests that donation approaches are changing, particularly dollars from high-net-worth individuals. In addition to our traditional fundraising approaches, we are starting to look into avenues such as venture and donor advised funds that offer seed funding and advisory services for smaller non-profit organizations.

Even though the City of Santa Ana (92701 - 92707) is located in the geographical center of Orange County, one of the wealthiest counties per capita in the nation, it is ironic that it was recently named by the Rockefeller Institute Studies as America’s number one “urban hardship" city. This dubious distinction was formulated by using a city’s income level, crowded housing, education, unemployment and dependency – then, comparing these statistics with other cities with similar population and size. This demographic profile serves as a back-drop for the youth and families KidSingers' serves. For almost three decades, KidSingers has been able to offer a positive option to these vulnerable young people. In recent years, however, KidSingers has expanded their demographic profile to include the more culturally diverse central Orange County cities of Tustin, Garden Grove, Orange, and Anaheim.

The following information should give you some unique background into KidSingers as an organization. Our Executive Director, Paul McNeff, has advanced college degrees in choral/vocal music and had spent 50 years in his career devoted to professional singing and choral directing. In 1994, due to budget cuts at the Crystal Cathedral, a large Orange County TV church ministry, his position was cut. Instead of pursuing legal action against the mega-church, McNeff invested a little severance pay from the church into establishing a non-profit community chorus. Following their first year of public conerts, Paul McNeff Singers formed an Educational Outreach Ensemble designed to educate and musicall inspire students in 42 elementary schools in Santa Ana. In 1997, McNeff saw a big gap, due to budget cuts in arts programs and in vocal music within the Santa Ana Unified School District. To address this issue, McNeff founded KidSingers. After twenty-three years, McNeff continues to lead rehearsals each week and maintains his up-front leadership with all KidSingers. Through his rehearsal leadership and “hands-on” training, the children—but particularly boys—see that it is cool to sing and create beautiful music through live performances. Typically, boys think that music is not a “macho” thing to do but when they can look up to a man who is so devoted to the art of singing and performance, they want to develop those same traits within themselves. An example of this is Huver Miranda. After six years as a KidSinger, Huver Miranda graduated from KidSingers and Century High School, joined the Marines and donated back to the KidSingers’ program his $4,500 KidSinger college scholarship, citing that his G.I. Bill would take care of his college education. After returning to the U.S. from his first permanent assignment in Okinawa, Japan, Huver attended KidSingers’ annual Spring Concert. After being called up to say a few words about KidSingers to the concert audience, Huver eloquently went on about how KidSingers had already instilled many of the same values that the Marines had reinforced in him. He ended with a comment that blew us all away. “The Marines didn’t make me a man, KidSingers did.” We were so honored that Huver would look back at his time in KidSingers as an experience that had so shaped his development as a person and a man.  

I, Gaby Brown, have been on KidSingers’ Board of Directors for 17 years, the last 11 as President. I was introduced to KidSingers by an invitation from a long-time supporter to attend their annual Holiday Concert performed at the Richard Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, a suburb in North Orange County. I was immediately smitten. There I witnessed the cohesive transformation of about 100 underserved youth predominantly from the City of Santa Ana known for their rampant gangs, into a beautiful, concise youth choir consisting of boys and girls ranging from 3rd to 12th grade. The next year, during their Spring Concert, I listened as those KidSingers being considered for college scholarship funds read their essays, some with raw emotion, about what KidSingers meant to them, and what they planned to study in college. Most, if not all, of these youths were going to be the first in their respective families to attend college. Over time, I had the opportunity to get to know a few of the kids in the program, heard more about their personal stories, and learn first-hand how KidSingers had transformed their lives, their dreams and goals (they now had them!), and how they had blossomed from shy kids, afraid to stand in front of others, much less sing in front of an audience, and how they were even trying out for solos. I can rant on about what a wonderful, positive, transformational program KidSingers is, but it’s when you hear it directly from the kids that you truly know how much this program means to them, and more importantly, how much they now mean to themselves for having been involved with KidSingers. You can’t help but see and feel the positive impact KidSingers has on them. Many KidSingers have younger siblings or cousins who are from the same or similar underserved communities, who are brought by an adult in the family to see the KidSingers' performances, and aspire to be a KidSinger themselves when they “come of age”. This dream itself contributes to keeping those kids out of negative temptations. Former KidSingers returning to assist with performance setups, being choral directors to the newer kids, and later bringing their kids to performances in anticipation of the day their children, too, can join the program that meant and still means so much to them, speaks volumes to what KidSingers brings to these youth. While we all can quote statistics, these are the true statistics. As a long-term employee and the head of HR for Griswold Industries, I am proud to report that my company annually donates upwards of $20,000 to KidSingers general operations. Our company’s President/CEO, Martin Pickett, has been convinced of the positive impact KidSingers is having on every student that is enrolled, year after year, and thus has been moved to support in this generous fashion. As he gradually backs down from his position toward retirement, he has delegated review and approval process of donation requests to a team of executive managers, and KidSingers now has the same respect from the new decision-makers that they have had from Mr. Pickett.