Youth in Arts hosted a 
morning of free musical performances, presenting a set of original interactive songs from our “C’mon Everybody” CD and our “Paper Princess” show for students at the Novato Youth Center and Olive Elementary School in Novato. The musical ensemble included YIA Program Director, Nydia Gonzalez and YIA Mentor Artists Miguel Martinez, Pedro Rosales and Alex Espolet.
At the Novato Youth Center, children ages 1 to 5 were dancing, singing, and clapping while learning about numbers, colors, feelings and gross motor skills. At the conclusion of the performance, many children insisted that we repeat the whole show again! One little boy said “I wish you would never go and we could sing these songs all day!” Well, although we were not able to stay all day, they WILL be able to sing the songs all day, as each child received a complimentary “C’mon Everybody” CD to take home with them!
At Olive Elementary School, Linda Breakstone and Stacey Hall’s Special Day Classes were the true stars of the show, as Grace, Johnathan and David rocked out in the front of the stage, dancing and occasionally helping out with the singing! Students learned ASL words for our greeting song Good Morning My Love, and then jumped, wiggled and marched to songs like King of the Beat. Some students from the other classrooms also attended, making for a filled room with students ranging from K to 4th grades and a range of abilities.
Linda and Stacey’s students are receiving 20 sessions of Music this year with YIA Mentor Artists Nina Pascuale and 
Hannah Dworkin through our subsidized VSA program. And, thanks to Jeffrey and Teresa Figone (parents of a VSA student), who helped facilitate a substantial Cy Pres Award to Youth in Arts, we are able to provide additional programming and resources, such as this performance and the CDs, to our students.
Thank you to the Figones, Marin Community Foundation and all of the other donors who help to make this programming possible!