A little over a year ago, one of our students and her family got a terrible scare. Sydney, then 15, suffered a cardiac arrest at her high school and was rushed to the hospital. Sydney was diagnosed with a disease known as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and immediately went on the waiting list for a heart transplant. She got a new heart in February2019.

She’s doing “very, very well,” says her mother, Xochil. “She has come a long way.”

One thing that has helped Sydney a lot on her journey to wellness: music. She had been taking guitar lessons from our volunteer teacher Zebadiah Evans starting in2017 and, around the time of her cardiac arrest, had begun learning the ukulele too. It turns out her cardiologist, Dr. Frank Fish, is also a ukulele enthusiast. He began bringing his bass uke to their appointments and they would play together. These music sessions made her much less anxious about visiting the doctor, her mom says.

Sydney practiced the ukulele at home a lot in those days. “It was her way of dealing with allthe stress this caused,” says her mom. “Things would have been very, very different without it. That’s really the joy of music, to me. And I don’t think the ukulele ever would havehappened without the Joy of Music School. I’m just so grateful.”

Her guitar teacher, Zebadiah, was touched by her story and wanted to do something to honor her courage. The result was a concert featuring his band, Omar the Rocker, and others — with all the proceeds goingto the Joy of Music School. We are grateful to Zeb for his thoughtful gesture and most grateful to know that our student Sydney is on the mend.