Our Impact
In Band of the Strong’s first summer, the program was all about providing an opportunity to experience the music, and it was done. Band of the Strong brought the guitars to the Munroe-Meyer Institute. Each kid got a guitar, got to paint the guitar, and a group of humble volunteers sat down with the kids to talk and play music. Band of the Strong left that day with smiles and knowing that there was still so much that needed to be done.
In the second summer Band of the Strong worked to provide the same resources and musical experience, and then added a local artist to events in order to bring in another element. Emilio Meza, of the Lincoln band Verse and the Vices came and honored Band of the Strong at their event with Mourning Hope Grief Center. He listened to the kids’ stories and was open enough to share his stories, one of which was through a personal song. His story connected with kids hearts and souls and he became a role model for what a future can look like; he was a new ray of Hope. Even though this was great, Band of the Strong knew they still had more to do.
During the third summer, Band of the Strong again worked with Mourning Hope Grief Center and generalized previous lessons into a four-step program that came to mimic research that is currently being done in counseling and therapy fields called Restorative Therapy. Our program works with the music and the arts. This program was inspired by the Blues and provided youth with the following:
1) an opportunity to practice the rhythm of the Blues by drumming to classic songs and work on 8-bar Blues with the guitars provided 2) song writing with emphasis on a single line or theme 3) painting guitars for expression and 4) working with finger slides to bring sound to the soul of the Blues.
These elements: forming a theme, expression of your theme, and working to bring your theme to life, is the journey one takes in creating music and in healing a heart. The Blues is about understanding what your heart needs and finding a way to tell the world your story. Life, whether you are dealing with great grief or simple, day-to-day challenges, is much the same. It was these ideas that moved us forward.
In October of 2018 Band of the Strong was again honored by another wonderful organization, Grief's Journey, who asked us to be a part of Camp Hope. More of the pieces came together during this event allowing Band of the Strong to continue to develop their model for how to best impact those working through the grief process. Our program took the elements mentioned above and viewed them in a new light.
Grief is a challenging road, but is one that is made better when one feels connected to a community. This idea - community - was the our theme. Through this theme, the youth at Camp Hope got the opportunity to tell their stories through painting, writing, and musical expression and then were tasked with talking about how their stories were a part of a larger grief community. These youth were asked to create a large make-shift puzzle with each of the their guitars. From this art youth were able to see what their community looked like and how it worked together.
Moving forward Band of the Strong aims their impact families who have been challenged with losing a loved one to cancer. Recently one of our board member’s brothers lost his battling to brain cancer. He acquired this cancer by sheer bad luck; his body simply made a bad mistake. Now Band of the Strong could take this event in my life and say, “To heck with it all. The world is unfair, so why should we help to make it better?” But, this isn’t what they did when one of the member’s dads died and this isn’t what they will do now. Instead Band of the Strong will take this moment in life to reflect on what is important and use the hardship to focus their influence in new ways. Moving forward Band of the Strong will be working with a local neurosurgeon in Lincoln Nebraska to develop a plan to help kids, as well as, families battling cancer.