Music Vs., a student-led club that debuted on the YU campus three years ago, is now in expansion mode, a sign that its mission–spreading cheer to the ill and elderly through music–continues to hit the right note with YU students.
Music Vs. was created by Mark Weingarten, a Yeshiva College and RIETS student who also serves as the program director. Elisheva Jakobov and Baila Kivelevitz lead the club on the SCW campus.
The goal of Music Vs. is for students to connect through the medium of music, song, and dance with children, veterans, and seniors who are dealing with various medical conditions.
Music Vs.’s model has already been met with success. It was a semifinalist in Livestrong’s 2014 Big C Competition, which provides grants and resources to winning programs whose work benefits cancer patients. The club also recently received a $5,000 grant awarded by Neal’s Fund, a Yeshiva University-based fund which provides small grants to student-charity-based startups to help the Jewish and general community.
Last year, students of the Yeshiva University branch, numbering over two-hundred students, made an effort to visit nursing homes in Washington Heights at least once a week in order to share their gifts of music and create lasting bonds with the residents there.
Now, club leaders aim to duplicate this success in campuses, hospitals, and nursing homes worldwide. In addition to the 24 already existing branches of Music Vs., fifteen new branches (in Canada, Israel, France, England, and South Africa) are currently in the works and scheduled to debut in the fall.
This summer, the club also launched the Music Vs. Summer Intern Program, run entirely by college students for high school students. The program enables student interns to develop their leadership abilities while enriching the lives of the elderly and ill. It also aims to enhance Music Vs.’s credentials so the club can expand its recruiting and programming. To make the program available to students of diverse backgrounds, the program partnered with government-funded initiatives and non-profits such as the Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York and the Hellenic American Neighborhood Action Committee.
Students can expect to receive S-Studs and Y-Studs soon for more information about the club’s programming and expansion projects this year.