HeARTS Giving Hope Foundation’s Cargill One of Three Toyota Women of the Year
“This was such a whirlwind experience!” she said in a recent article announcing the winners chosen by Glamour Magazine readers.
Winners were awarded in three categories – The Driving Forces, The Risk Takers, and The Forward Thinkers.
Toyota sponsored the Women of the Year event honoring women who are moving forward.
Cargill won in The Driving Forces category.
Her foundation, started in 2002, is dedicated to improving the lives of abused and underprivileged kids with music and visual arts. Cargill formed the organization through a course called the Self-Expression and Leadership Program, where people take on projects to help their communities. In less than three months she formed HeARTS and organized and held a two-hour musical concert fundraiser at Concordia University in Irvine, raising money to provide music therapy scholarships for children in need.
One of the many children HeARTS has helped is Adam Clark, a young autistic child who could not speak before beginning music therapy classes. The therapeutic uses of music seems to activate different parts of the brain, including networks associated with motor control, memory, emotion, and speech, explains neuroscientist and musician Michael Thaut at Colorado State University.
One of the programs within the Foundation includes the HeARTS and Crafts Faires held in inner-city neighborhoods in Orange and Los Angeles County, CA. Items are donated for children to create their own special keepsakes with arts and crafts.
Every year the Foundation sponsors a fundraiser concert and silent auction showcasing Los Angeles’ top performers like one of Rod Stewart’s band members.
The proceeds raised from the first fundraiser were donated to the music therapy department at California State University at Northridge to provide scholarships for autistic children in need of financial aid.
This year funds raised from the concert will go toward the creation and funding of creativity courses and interactive music and art for at-risk youth and teens in foster care facilities throughout L.A. and Orange Counties.
According to the foundation’s website music helps healing in a variety of ways.
“Part of music’s power comes from its ability to relive anxiety, which can suppress immune deficiencies as well as intensify the experience of pain,” the site states.
Says Northridge music therapist Ron Borazon: “Traditional healers have used songs for centuries.”
“This started as a class project – a project where I could combine my passion for working with abused and underprivileged children with my love of music and arts, to make a difference in this world,” said Cargill.
The Gifts of Music Concert Fundraisers through the Foundation is in need of volunteers who can help facilitate registration, ushering, other aspects of production, help spread the word, advertise, and promote fundraising benefits. The Faires need help teaching and overseeing arts and crafts projects, donating art supplies, and other aspects of event production.
Corporate sponsorships help the Foundation create unique promotional and marketing opportunities for corporations.
To donate time or get more information, email HeARTSGivingHope@aol.com.
If you would like to donate to the Patrick McDonough Music Therapy Scholarship Fund, mail a check payable to HeARTS Giving Hope Foundation, referencing the Patrick McDonough Fund in the memo line of your check. For more information, go to heartsgivinghope.org.
