March 25, 2009 – The Collateral Loan and Secondhand Dealers Foundation (CLSD Foundation; 501c(3) in process) is a philanthropic organization founded by the Collateral Loan and Secondhand Dealers Association of California. CLSDA encourages its extensive network of California pawnbrokers to take part in the CLSD Foundation through both donations and hands-on involvement.
Recently, CLSDA members donated a variety of musical instruments to the CLSD Foundation. As a direct result of their generosity, the CLSD Foundation completed its first distribution of musical instruments to the students of Lincoln High School in San Jose, CA.
This was the first step in their ultimate goal of a statewide outreach program collecting and then furnishing underprivileged California schools, grades K-12, with quality musical instruments.
According to CLSDA Board President Robert Verhoeff, Lincoln High School was an ideal candidate for the program. “The school recently had most of its band instruments stolen and had no funds to replace them,” he said. “It was fortunate that through our Foundation we were able to rally the California pawn community to provide more than 24 quality instruments to the school.”
Lincoln High School music teacher Kate Meyer said in all of her years of teaching this is the most extraordinary thing she has ever seen. “We are very grateful to the CLSD Foundation for its efforts.”
“While pawnbrokers have always been actively involved in their community through business and social organizations, we felt we could utilize our industry’s knowledge and individual members’ love for music to provide badly needed support for various musical programs,” Verhoeff said. “We see this as just the beginning of how our industry and its members can give back to our communities through this Foundation.”
The Importance of Music Education
Respondents of a recent Harris Poll cite skills they learned in music as helping them in their careers today. Seventy-two percent of adults with music education agree that it equips people to be better team players in their career and nearly six in ten agree that music education has influenced their creative problem solving skills. Many also agree music education provides a disciplined approach to problem solving, a sense of organization and prepares someone to manage the tasks of their job more successfully
Other studies show the value of music programs to our future generations:
• Students in top quality music programs scored 22 percent higher in English and 20 percent higher in math on standardized tests mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act (University of Kansas).
• In 2006, SAT takers with coursework in music performance scored 57 points higher on the verbal portion of the test and 43 points higher on the math portion (The College Board, Profile of College-Bound Seniors National Report for 2006).