Music Helps Me Cope
His mother died when he was six. His father, addicted to drugs, abandoned him. At 16, RJ arrived at Plummer Youth Promise a lonely, traumatized teenager who had been bouncing around the foster care system for several years.
RJ had a lot to overcome. And the Plummer Youth Promise music program helped him do that. As he explains:
“Sometimes I feel as though … I want to express … A lot of pain. And I’ve shown that through making a song called Raise Your Hands. … I wrote raise your hands because I want to … talk to my deceased parents because of the fact that I felt as though there’s a lot of things that were left unsaid but I wanted to say to them.”
Watch RJ’s Raise Your Hands video to see what we mean. With the first verse addressing his deceased mother, and the second his deceased father, RJ speaks of love, anger and ultimately forgiveness.
One of the tools Plummer uses to help young men and women move past their pain is music. RJ is a perfect example of how this works.
Aaron Z. Katz, professional musician and Plummer Home’s Music Program Leader speaks of the range of feelings he sees when teaching the kids music.
“Some of the emotions that I’ve seen expressed … are remembering rough experiences and being able to bring those up and deal with them and express them in a positive way. … We do everything from basic instrumental lesson, music theory, learning drums, piano, guitar, bass, songwriting.”
Plummer Youth Promise works with kids — mostly teens — in foster care or the juvenile justice system. They have suffered from things like violence, neglect, hunger, bullying and worse. They often struggle with depression, anger, anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder. They have trouble trusting people.
We are raising money through our six-week Key of C Campaign to ensure that music remains an expressive outlet for kids like RJ. Each week, we will share the stories of at-risk and vulnerable teens who have used music to develop characteristics so vital to thriving in adulthood – things like courage, confidence, and coping skills.
Help us ensure that Plummer Youth Promise can continue to make music available to kids in the foster care and juvenile justice system as they try to overcome experiences most of us can’t imagine.
If you would like to hear some of RJ’s original music, go to:
