I've always loved music, mainly country music. A few years ago I started interning on 101.5 The Eagle doing production, promotions and occasionally got to chat on-air as "Late Kate". I LOVED it. The last year or so I've only been able to help at events, but my love for radio and country music is still very much alive.
As I've missed having direct associations with music every week, I've been looking for something to help fill that void. A small miracle happened awhile back and I've been able to combine my love for music AND service.
The new love of mine has been a non-profit organization called, "Musicians in Motion" www.musiciansinmotion.org . I started working with them as a guide, off and on about a year and a half ago. A few months back an opportunity came up for me to join them permanently! This has been a beautiful miracle in my life. As a guide, I enter hospital rooms and introduce who we are and see if they would like a song sung to them LIVE. At that point, I invite our musician into the room and who gets to know their music preferences, they are sung to and maybe we chat a bit with them. Each patient is different. I've been at a rehabilitation center in Sandy, but starting in a few weeks, I will be moving over to the University Hospital to work in another unit. I wish more people could see how much good this organization does. Sometimes its hit and miss with the reaction you see from patients, but then there are the days that we only get to five patient rooms because the magic is so thick and we get to stay and talk because they don't want us to leave. They love visitors and music takes their worries away from their pain and the loneliness of being in a long-stay facility. My favorite experience like this happened just last week.
We were visiting our favorite patient, and after two years, this was the first time Musicians In Motion was able to meet her family, which was her mom, who happened to be there that day. *Shannon cannot speak due to her condition, but the sweet feeling of love is always in her room (which is probably why she is our favorite) and this feeling becomes even more apparent when she has her favorite song sung to her, "Blackbird". Her mom was so surprised to hear that we've been visiting her for so long. We got a lot more insight to *Shannon and it was such a joy to be with her and her mom that night :) This organization is now a non-profit and recognized as such by the IRS---this means we can now fund-raise--Yay! Hopefully I will have more details here soon about that. In the meantime, if you'd like more information or be interested in volunteering as either a guide or musician, I'd be happy to answer questions!
Last of all, there has been another love slowly developing, in my life. Health and fitness has always been an interest of mine, but due to whatever reason, mostly self-doubt, I've never really followed-through with any of it. Due to Instagram I've found a network of women who are very passionate about it and although I still know nothing, I have been reaching out to them for inspiration and knowledge. I am pretty darn excited about this. I haven't always wanted to be a weightlifting chick...but I do now! I just took some "before" pictures tonight and sent them off to one of the gals I'm hoping can help me figure out where I'm going with this.
Someday I hope to post them...but only after I have some good "after" shots to set them next to :)
Stay motivated ya'll. Find things that you love to do. It feels pretty great!
*Shannon - not her real name. HIPA and all...ya know?
*Shannon - not her real name. HIPA and all...ya know?
1 comment:
That's so awesome that you do that--I had no idea an organization like that even existed. What a positive thing to fill your life with--love it!
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