More low-income students at the Hollister Dual Language Academy will have the chance to bring home instruments, thanks to a private grant.
The Hollister School District site will receive a $5,000 grant on Sept. 4 from the Barona Band of Mission Indians to give music-making apparatuses to students who otherwise couldn’t afford to participate in band.
“We’re just putting more instruments in the hands of our kids,” said Principal Monique Ruiz. “We’re very excited – and grateful – for the opportunity to give this to the kids.”
The Barona Band of Mission Indians is a Native American tribe that provides grants to California schools so they can buy materials to promote academic improvement, according to the group’s website.
At the academy, students in the fourth, fifth and sixth grades at the K-6 school have the opportunity to sing in a choir or play instruments at least once a week. Those who choose to try their hands at flute, clarinet, trombone, trumpet, saxophone or percussion learn the basics of cleaning an instrument, reading music and producing sounds pleasing to the human ear.
“I think it’s great,” said Susan Silveira, who teaches band and choir at the academy. “Those kids, they’re already learning a second language – and really music is another language.”
Silveira teaches band at all the elementary and junior high schools in the Hollister School District and each year she works with students who want to participate in band but can’t afford instruments. While the district does own some instruments that can be lent to students, there are not enough to fill all pupils’ demands. Silveira tells students without instruments to show up to class with a pencil, so they can pretend the writing utensil is a flute or a clarinet while they wait for the real deal. Some wait as long as Christmastime hoping for an instrument as a gift or that a student using one of the district’s instruments will drop out.
“A lot of them just sit there and they learn the notes and they learn the fingers on the pencil, but you can only go so far and then it isn’t so fun,” Silveira said.
Administrators at HDLA applied for the grant after Assemblyman Luis Alejo suggested the school might be a good fit and offered to draft the required legislator endorsement letter.
For Ruiz, the grant is a chance to make the school’s funding stretch further.
“There’s only so many resources that the district has, so this allows more of our children to find out if music is one of their talents,” she said.
Attend the grant presentation:
The Barona Band of Mission Indians will present a check for $5,000 to the Hollister Dual Language Academy at 1 p.m. Sept. 4 near the campus’ front office at 873 Santa Ana Rd. in Hollister. Assemblyman Luis Alejo, Hollister School District Superintendent Gary McIntire, the district’s music teacher Susan Silveira and several classes of academy students will be present. Members of the public may attend if they register with the front office before the event.
