United Sound, an Arizona nonprofit based in Mesa that provides music lessons to special needs students, recently received a $15,000 grant through Arizona Financial Credit Union’s Local Causes Visa program.
The grant will be used for the nonprofit’s peer mentorship program, where special needs high school students are matched up with peer mentors and take individualized classes to learn an instrument. Mentors are trained to work with and interact with special needs students while they teach them an instrument. The students are provided with an opportunity to learn an instrument at a pace that accommodates for their disability.
“A school will reach out to us or we will reach out to them. We’ll help them to set up a United Sound chapter within the entity of their school. The existing music students then become peer mentors,” United Sound Executive Director Julie Duty said. “Once we have those peer mentors identified, we ask the students in the special education department if they would like to play an instrument. They have a choice of all of the instruments, which is a really important first step of authenticity if you play the instrument that you would really like to play, not the instrument that someone else decides is appropriate for your physical or intellectual disability.”
