Not to toot our own horn (pun intended!), but we have budding musicians in our new Immokalee Community Academy (ICA) band. The benefits extend beyond learning to play music, but they could use some more instruments, if you have an old flute or tuba lying around your house.
“Participating in band helps students not only learn how to read music and play an instrument, it impacts other areas of learning as well,” says Isabel Garcia, RCMA’s executive director. “It helps with fine motor skills, teamwork, self-discipline, mathematics and language. There are even studies that have found correlations between students enrolled in band and orchestra having high SAT and ACT scores in high school.”
Of course, it’s also fun. “What I love about band is the fact that we can come together as a group to create something beautiful like music,” says Eduardo Lopez Agustin, a 7th-grade student who plays trumpet.
Music Director Marissa Curtis started the band, in part, because other Collier County public schools have one and she wanted ICA students to have band experience so they could participate in high school.
All of our almost 300 scholars at the school participate in a music class, but band brings this learning to life.
“When they first started playing, they were very surprised by the sound the instruments make and how different they are from the instruments they used in elementary classes,” Marissa says.
“They have been blown away by the fact that they can connect what they have learned in music so far and apply that to their instruments. Their faces always light up and they say ‘Miss Curtis, I learned how to play this song on my instrument!’ ”
The band was launched with instruments donated by Cadence Music and purchased with grants from Arthrex as well as Trinity-by-the-Cove Episcopal Church.
When we add 8th grade at ICA in the 2022-2023 school year, even more students will be eligible for band, so our need for supplies is growing.
If you can donate an instrument in good working condition that you no longer need, that would be music to our ears!
We need flutes, clarinets, saxophones, trumpets, trombones, tubas, drums, cymbals and drumsticks.
Please reach out to CR@rcma.org to learn more.
