#SHARP Start-Up Fund

So this is our mom... and she is altogether hardworking, loving, and inspiring.

As long as we can remember, her life has been centered around music. She has played the flute since high school and has been the Children's Choir Director at our church for years. She has always gone above and beyond to share the joy of music throughout our family, church, and everyone around her.

One amazing part of her story starts with our little brother Aiden. Aiden was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder at a very young age and quickly became the driving force behind what was to come next.

Here's this cutie...

While raising a child with autism, our mom quickly began to realize two things; how important therapists were to Aiden's success and how much our community and world needed a boost of awareness and acceptance of those with special needs.

Being the driven woman that she is, our mom decided to take her love for music, combine it with her passion to better Aiden's life, and go back to school to become a Music Therapist.

Throughout her schooling, our mom worked tirelessly to be the best student she could be. All while raising children and working a full-time job. 

One pivotal point in her career started with a class project that evolved into something life changing; Musical Memories for Autism. This event was created to provide a free concert to those with autism and their families. Here, social constructs on how to act during a concert went out the door. My mom wanted to provide an accepting place for everyone to come and enjoy music freely. This concert positively affected so many in the special needs community, especially Aiden, that my mom didn't want it to stop once she graduated.

(Musical Memories Concert - Instrument Petting Zoo)

And here lies the reason we are writing to everyone today...

Our mom wants the joy that everyone felt from her original concert to flourish and continue on. For the past year, she has been working on creating a non-profit organization called #SHARP. This organization will be a complete concert series that will again provide the much needed accepting atmosphere for those with special needs to explore and experience music in their own way.

With how much time and effort our mom has dedicated to helping others, we think it is time to help her too.

The process of starting a non-profit organization is time consuming, lengthy, and of course expensive. Although my mom has been very fortunate and grateful to have had multiple people offer their time and resources to getting the organization off the ground, it is now time to start paying filing and start-up fees.

This is where your generous donations will go... To tax document filing fees, materials for the concerts, and to assist my mom's planning throughout the upcoming month.

We are all extremely excited to say that the first concert for the #SHARP series is scheduled for Saturday, October 29th at Rollins College. (a website is being created at this moment so that anyone and everyone can access event details and rsvp)

The name #SHARP doesn't only stand for music itself but also for Sharing Harmony And Raising Possibilities. This is exactly what my mom wants to achieve.

So please help our mom get this started! My family cares for the special needs community greatly and this organization is definitely an experience that they all deserve.

Any amount can help catapult my mom's great venture into success.

We all thank you so much in advance,

The Bratek Kids