Smart’s & Music Gives Scholarships

By COLlive reporter

Smart’s & Music, an after-school music and fine arts program in Crown Heights, is offering scholarship grants for local children ages 3-12.

“As we started the program this year, we realized that there are so many kids in the community that are not able to join us because of financial limitations,” says co-owner Rebecca Cherry.

The Sponsorship Program will provide partial or full funding for each semester of music classes (violin, world drumming, guitar) and art classes (painting, drawing, comic book making and jewelry making.)

Cherry said donations for the program and applications requesting to be included in the program can be done at their website smartsandmusic.com.

“We rely on donations from individuals,” she said. “Our program takes a personal approach to each child and family, to create a community within our school.”

The creative program, open Sunday through Thursday, was started in October 2013 by Cherry and Rivkie Zalmanov after learning that there was a need in the community for such activities.

“These experiences are so precious,” says Cherry, who grew up playing the violin and became a world-class musician. “I encounter so many people who either had musical or arts training as a child or wished they did.”

She said she doesn’t expect most of these children to become professionals in the arts, but to take their hard work and dedication to something that they love and transfer it into their future professions.

“We are building our future community leaders, and I don’t want any child to not have the ability to flourish in this environment that we are creating.”

Teachers are trained in their professions and have been teaching for a minimum of 5 years, the school said.

Classes are held once per week, for 13 week semesters. Each class is one hour long. The price is $195 for a semester and $400 for the year.

For more info, visit smartsandmusic.com.

Cherry said they plan on offering workshops for adult learning in a variety of areas, including cooking, design, music and art “in the near future.”