Beacause I am an amateur orchestra violinist, since June 2010 I have volunteered to organize a youth orchestra in Lawndale. We started teaching 8 children at the public library and word quickly spread. The community responded so strongly that not only the number of children grew to more than 50 in less than a year, but also an outpour of support allowed us to grow. We now use space at the new Lawndale Community Center as well as the library and the lawn in front of City Hall, running 3 concurrent session at times, thanks to our volunteer and professional staff.

Help comes in the form of volunteer musicians, free space at public facilities, organizers, and money to pay for professional string players and instruments.

We have partnered up with a similar organization called Palos Verdes Strings and we have had two concerts at Marsee Auditorium where children from all over the South Bay, and of different backgrounds, have come together to achieve the common good of making music.

I have a vision that by forming a nonprofit organization, I can help start other satellites in other communities where kids don't have enough quality constructive and recreational activities and then bring them all together to play in concerts.

We plan to partner up with other similar groups in the Los Angeles area and include dance and singing to create an uplifting culture through fine arts, with an emphasis in reaching out to the most excluded children. We would like to partner up with school districts to include this activity in their after school programs.

Also, I would like to work with law enforcement to help us connect with kids who still may be within reach and rescue them from falling into a life of crime.

While all of this may sound too idealistic, this work has been done for the past 35 years in Venezuela and they are obtaining awesome results.