29 December, 2016

On Nov 18, 2016 a Hohner-sponsored Harmonikids session at the Diamond Children’s Medical Center in Tucson, AZ brought healing joy to child patients and members of their families. It was a fun and delightful session starting with a concert in which I played and the children sang along. Afterwards all attendees were amazed at the speed and accuracy in which they learned to play four songs on their new Hohner-donated instruments. The attached happy “harmonica-heart” image of one of the child patients and specialist Sarena Rivera’s note of thanks say everything about the joyful benefits the kids received that day.

~ Gary Allegretto, Founding Director of Harmonikids, www.harmonikids.org

We had a wonderful time! You are so talented! We had several patients attend the harmonica event today which was so exciting! Several of the children are long term patients and have not been able to leave their room very often. This was a great reason to go for a little walk and forget about being in the hospital for awhile! One of our patients was laughing out loud and it was adorable! Another long term patient was beaming the entire time. We are so grateful for visitors like Gary who help provide some new fun distraction for our patients! This is a positive memory these children will have with them from their hospital experience!

~ Sarena Lynn Rivera ME, CCLS, Certified Child Life Specialist, Diamond Children’s Medical Center, Tucson, AZ