The Joey's Wings Foundation - My Story by Sophia

The Joey's Wings Foundation - My Story by Sophia - December 2019 Scholarship Essay

“We play to help kids fight cancer, one note at a time.” This is the tagline for our string quartet, Joey’s Strings, founded in December 2016, almost two years after Joey Xu passed away from a rare kidney cancer. A musically talented and intellectually gifted boy, his life stopped at 10 years old forever.

It started as any other high school chamber group - we just wanted to play music for fun. From torturing our poor cellist with the repeating eight notes of Pachelbel’s Canon in D to butchering the second movement of Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 8 and hysterically laughing at Ray Chen’s facial expressions in Koncz’s string quartet arrangement of Waltzing Matilda, we bonded over our simple love for music.
When I heard of Joey’s story, I couldn’t imagine the pain, denial, and anger he and his family must have suffered. But what I could grasp was his family’s desire to honor Joey’s death by starting the non-profit Joey’s Wings to advocate and fund for childhood cancer research. I understood exactly what drove them to initiate change because in that moment, I felt a desperation in my gut to do the same. So when the idea of using our musical talents to raise money for the foundation was proposed, it was an immediate yes from me.

The four of us all agreed to organize performances and give 100% of all proceeds to the Joey’s Wings Foundation. Our goal was simply to make a difference; to use music to inspire audiences to make donations and become involved with advocating for childhood cancer research.

Eager to start taking action, we immediately began the process of managing ourselves as performers, giving our quartet a name, creating a Joey’s Strings Facebook page, and searching for performance opportunities. As the performance manager of the group, many emails were sent, phone calls were made, and Facebook posts were published through my accounts. I dedicated countless hours to researching nearby events, concerts, and possible performance locations that we could offer our services for. With the responsibility of finding these opportunities, I was able to confront and experience first hand real world discipline, focus, and preparation.

Our first performance was on December 18, 2016 at a private Christmas party. Since then, we have given more than 20 concerts and raised more than $4,500! Our concerts have ranged from Facebook and Visa’s headquarters to private homes, schools, parks, and shopping malls for events like holiday celebrations, birthday parties, weddings, baby showers, benefit concerts, and even a preschool open house gala event.

However, before the successful concerts came hard work and preparation. Knowing that we were no longer just a typical carefree ensemble playing for our own enjoyment but now a performance group with responsibilities and the dependence of an entire foundation pressured us to do well. Music making requires the long process of practice and rehearsals. As busy high school students, scheduling proved itself challenging. Having to balance our participation with the quartet with schoolwork and other extracurriculars resulted in rehearsals ending as late as 11 PM. Also, in desperate attempts to not miss any performance opportunities, we resolved concert conflicts by rearranging the music to work for a string trio or sometimes even resorting to replacing musicians.

Since our performances ranged from children's birthday parties to company dinners, we had to choose music selectively based on the audiences' preferences. Additionally, rehearsing and performing are emotionally and physically draining tasks, especially when outdoor performances involve wind blowing our flimsy stands down and music away. We often had to creatively improvise ways to keep everything in one piece, whether it be using hair clips to hold music down or taping music stands to the ground. We also had to clarify all logistical aspects of the concert: what the program should be, what our MC notes should include, where we should keep our instrument cases, how we should go on and off the stage, etc. Learning to manage ourselves allowed us to discover all the miniscule details that require utmost attention.

Despite all our struggles, I remain well aware what we achieved is incomparable to what would have been if we never became Joey’s Strings. We were fortunate enough to be presented with a unique opportunity to turn sparks of inspiration into motivation, to believe in and do something greater than ourselves, and accepting that calling without hesitation allowed me to discover that within me lives an innate hunger to do good and the capability to make real impact. I know now that music and community has a relationship of unfathomable power. It is invigorating to experience first hand the deeper rewards of communal bonding and social connectedness that music can induce. A single performance can evoke so much joy, and a small group of four high schoolers can mean so much to a particular family and do so much to bring awareness to childhood cancer.

So with everything we learned from working with the non-profit organization the Joey's Wings Foundation, I will forever take with me the valuable knowledge of how to delegate responsibilities and organize a successful performance group. Truly, I am grateful for this opportunity, for it has shown me that making communal contributions is an essential component of my personal sense of accomplishment and a purpose that I will seek to fulfill for the rest of my life.