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A Message From Carol Zilli, Executive Director
 As we come to the end of our milestone 30th year of service, we reflect back on 2018 and can definitely say that it was a very good year, filled with music, library and community presentations, our new Family Music Festival at the Niles Town Plaza, community performances by our MFMII Kids Choir, lots of recruitment booths in the community, our first CBS Bay Area Focus interview, our 30th Anniversary Gala, and many other exciting and memorable activities especially at our school sites.
“Blues in the Schools”
In August we kicked off our new “Blues in the Schools” workshop for docents and community volunteers, presented by Michael “Hawkeye” Herman and sponsored by our generous donors, Barry and Holly Walter, partners of the Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise. These docents are preparing their school presentations on the “Blues” which will begin in late January and early February. Barry and Holly also sponsored our harmonica workshop which was a great success empowering about 40 of our docents with their free harmonicas. A docent trainee even used her harmonica in her final presentation having been motivated by the workshop.
Docent Training 2018
Our docent training classes prepared 30 new and talented MFMII Docents who are now placed in the schools, guided by their mentors, and enriching thousands of children each week in addition to our veteran docents.
MFMII 30th Anniversary Gala
The culmination of our memorable 30th anniversary was our recent Gala on Nov. 9th at the Paradise Ballrooms in Fremont which featured Grammy Nominee, Red Grammer in Concert, Lori and RJ of Kids Music with a Groove, the Dream Achievers Band, MFMII Kids Choir, and our talented “Dancing Docents” who sang and danced to the gala theme song: “Keeping Music Alive,” lyrics compliments of MFMII Docent Manager, Susan Schwartz, dance steps by Hirsch Docent, Suzie Young, and recorded by the talented Renard “RJ” Johnson of Lori & RJ.
MFMII “Keeping Music Alive” Award
MFMII was happy and honored to recognize representatives of the Fremont Bank Foundation for their amazing generosity whose Gala “Fermata” Sponsorship plus countless other grant funding over the past 8+ years, has totaled about $30,000 in our 30th year of service! Julie Moore and Julie Zhu accepted our framed certificate of the “Keeping Music Alive” Award on behalf of the Fremont Bank Foundation. Our thanks to Republic Services for their Gala sponsorship as well as the Washington Hospital Healthcare System and Mayor Lily Mei along with all of our local businesses.
Hats off to the 30th Gala committee members under the outstanding leadership of Maggie-Lyn Babauta, MFMII Events Coordinator, whose countless hours of dedicated work made our event a success: Program Manager Veera Kazak, Administrative Asst. Sharon Filippi, Docent Manager Susan Schwartz, MFMII Recruitment Coordinator Serena Huang, Social Media Coordinator Poorva Singh, and Executive Director Carol Zilli.
MFMII Kids Choir Shines
So Part 3 of the MFMII story, our third decade of service, ends on a very positive “note” of joy as we welcome new and returning schools in Fremont, Castro Valley and Hayward Unified School Districts and new and continuing sponsors and donors who support our mission of keeping music alive in children’s classrooms and lives. May our next decade of service bring thousands more children musical joy and nurturing so that they can experience the educational, health, cognitive, and social benefits that only music can bring and that countless more people will advocate for music as a vital part of the educational curriculum for all children!
Our annual holiday party at our home was very merry and bright for our MFMII docent volunteers and their families, the MFMII staff, board members and Advisory Council member, Fremont Mayor Lily Mei. Particularly joyful was the dramatization of the 12 Days of Christmas in our annual singalong.
Wishing everyone a Happy New Musical Year!
Carol Zilli
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