JOY has been providing access to free music and strings education to youth in Yamhill County, Oregon since 2017. In collaboration with Yamhill County public schools and their districts, they provide both In-School and After-School Violin and orchestral programming to elementary-aged youth. JOY takes inspiration from the Suzuki Method in the style of teaching and progression of skills.
JOY currently serves 675 students and plans to expand to three more elementary schools next year and will serve close to 1000 students. This past fall, they onboarded five Assistant Teaching Artists from the local high school orchestra program, and they are excited to be inspiring the next generation of music educators.
JOY appreciates their membership with El Sistema USA!
“Recently, our JOY Teaching Artists have begun to participate in the El Sistema TA Forums via Zoom. This has been a good time to connect to other TAs and dive a little deeper into discussions around the challenges of classroom teaching and teaching in a post pandemic education system. Our leadership has participated in the program director forums and found them beneficial to connect with other people to collaborate about common nonprofit challenges, program structure, TA retention strategies, and ideas on age-appropriate program offerings.”
JOY is a program of the Yamhill Enrichment Society-YES. The mission of YES is to provide access to free, high-quality music and literacy enrichment programs to Yamhill County children.
