BTNF 2021 Fundraiser: The Rebound

The COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc on the lives of Americans. With unemployment at historic highs and children in need of even more support and enrichment than ever before, Beyond The Natural Foundation (BTNF) remains committed to using music to cultivate the creativity of our youth through collaboration in all efforts to build community.

In 2020, we made major shifts in our programming to adapt and respond to our COVID-19 impacted community. BTNF launched an online Music Production platform and offered a hybrid, in-person and virtual, TUITION-FREE summer camp specifically for youth residing in Baltimore City whose parents or legal guardians had either been unemployed, furloughed, or experienced a 50% reduction in work hours as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. To further promote equity and inclusion, BTNF pivoted to provide program participants with a program toolkit for at-home use that includes a djembe drum, a 61-key Yamaha Keyboard, and an iPad. YES! EQUIPMENT IN THEIR HOMES! All youth participants in our program are now able to have a hands-on arts enrichment experience from the comfort and safety of their homes. To serve our community even further, we launched a program called “Strengthening The Village” which allows parents and children to participate in music workshops together to serve as a therapeutic respite from all of their virtual school and work events while creating new fun musical memories together. This program is great because families get to leave their homes, engage in fun music activities in a safe environment, eat food, and interact with others in their community. 

These programmatic innovations due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic have made a positive impact. We plan to keep our Strengthening The Village (STV) program for parents and children, our virtual music production program, and providing at-home music program toolkits for program participants. BTNF is passionate about positive impact and consistency. Since the inception of our STV program, our program engagement has increased which is really important to our organization. Parents are more excited and engaged in the program because they get to participate and experience it for themselves. This will allow us to be even more effective at achieving our program goals. We plan to keep our virtual music production program because it allows for us to have more programming bandwidth not being restricted to physical space limitations. Our online music production program also provides greater music arts enrichment access now that most children and youth have smart devices and WIFI service. We plan to keep providing at-home music program toolkits for enrolled participants. With these new programmatic innovations, we have now improved our capacity for greater positive impact in moving our mission forward. Every innovation we have made, we plan to continue!

Ray A. Davis said "A challenge only becomes an obstacle when you bow to it." Although 2020 was one of the most challenging times in human history, BTNF persevered to still have a positive impact on 93 youth. Here is a snapshot of some of our 2020 metrics!

To further unpack the aforementioned, in 2020 we achieved the following:

- an Average Daily Attendance of 92.6% across all programs showing high engagement

- 97% of campers demonstrated academic progress accomplishing our goal to decrease summer learning loss

- 100% of surveyed parents and students expressed satisfaction with their experience in our programs

This speaks not only to our resilience as an organization, but also to the resilience of our community of youth and families that we serve. No one could have predicted 2020 to be the type of year that it was. Teamwork truly made the dream work. Here are a couple samples of media impressions BTNF made in 2020:

WJZ13 Baltimore Highlights BTNF 2020 Summer Camp

WBAL11 Baltimore Highlights BTNF 2020 Summer Camp

With a return to some sense of normalcy around the corner and progress being made on all fronts with in person youth programming, 2021 is poised to be a BETTER YEAR. BTNF is excited because we have even greater capacity to have an even greater impact. However, we need YOUR SUPPORT. Our goal is to continue offering low-to-no cost programs that serve youth and families. Please partner with us by donating to our efforts to help us offset the cost of general operating expenses associated with Salaries & Wages, Accounting, Marketing, and Data Evaluation. EVERY DOLLAR AMOUNT HELPS!! 

On behalf of our Board of Directors and Staff, we thank you for your consideration in helping us use music to reach and inspire our youth in creating greater life opportunities for themselves. Through your generous support to BTNF, your hands shape and mold the lives of our youth for the better. Together, WE CAN and WILL REBOUND!

While a vaccine will hopefully get us beyond at least one aspect of our current reality, music is good medicine every day, until then and beyond. 2021, HERE WE COME!!!