Summer Free Violin Workshop for Needy Children

The Little Stars Foundation (TLSF), founded by youth in Canton has successfully completed a four-week-long free violin workshop this summer from June to July. It is the 7th consecutive year that TLSF has been providing free music workshops for local kids. This introductory level workshop is aimed at introducing music and specifically violin to elementary kids since there is no band or orchestra program offered at elementary schools in Plymouth-Canton school district. This year, more than 20 local kids, ages 6-12 and many of them had never touched a musical instrument before, were able to take advantage of it.

The workshop was led by Foundation co-founders Alan Sun and Anna Sun, with assistance from several TLSF members: Lucia Qian, Ruhi Nayak, Meghan Guo, Paul Shen and Yihong Tong. The workshop used various methods, including games and interactive activities, to make learning the violin easy and fun. After 4 weeks students learned the fundamental skills of violin playing, and were able to play a few songs, such as “Twinkle, twinkle little star”.
A graduation recital held at Canton Administration Building meeting room on the last day of workshop. The Canton Community Foundation supported this year’s workshop.

Music is important in early childhood development, fostering creativity and improving academics. One of the challenges is that children aren’t exposed to music at an early age, especially those from low income families. The purpose of this workshop was to getting kids started on the instrument and exposing them to playing. TLSF has provided a 4-week-long free violin workshop to elementary students every summer since 2009. After 7 successful years of workshops, more than 180 children have benefited from the program.

The Little Stars Foundation is a nonprofit charitable organization whose mission is to promote music education for children in the local community, and to provide an outlet for children who love music and care about senior citizens. For more information regarding TLSF, please visit the group’s Web site at http://www.thelittlestars.org/ or contact Yihong Tong at (734)981-1947.