Izzi’s song lives on through instrument donations to city students
WOONSOCKET— It was a time for smiles and words of thanks at the high school on Wednesday as Domenic and Lois Izzi brought another load of musical instruments to local students who had won a related essay contest.
In all, 19 students at the high school and middle school were selected for the donation of a musical instrument from the Domenic A. Izzi Jr. Foundation as part of the second such award the Izzis have made to Woonsocket’s future music performers.
The Foundation provided 23 Woonsocket music students with instruments during the first awards made in February of 2016.
The Foundation was created by the Izzis to remember their son, Domenic A. Izzi Jr., a talented Rhode Island musician who had been killed in a tragic accident while heading home from a performance in 2012.
Domenic had been a generous person himself who had worked to organize a Rhode Island concert and fundraising effort benefitting the surviving victims of The Station nightclub fire. Izzi also had worked on a documentary film on The Station fire that raised even more funding for the victims, some of whom he had known as friends.
Domenic’s father said on Wednesday that the Woonsocket School Department’s support for the music donations last year had made him want to come back again this year.
“The essays this year were outstanding and the reception we get from the school community is truly overwhelming,” Domenic Izzi said. “That is why we came back,” he said.
The Foundation has made its awards for the past five years around Rhode Island and in nearby Massachusetts and Izzi said most of the funding for the instruments is raised a big concert held each year in support of donations.
“We had 15 bands participate in the concert in Warwick last September,” he said while noting the event has become a big draw to those who want to help out with the Izzis’ work.
In addition to the instruments handed out to Woonsocket students on stage at the high school on Wednesday, the Foundation also presented 20 North Providence students with instruments on April 5, he noted.
“It is all about Domenic and certainly the kids in Woonsocket will live in his memory playing music on their instruments,” his father said. “It’s all good and don’t make me emotional again,” he said while recalling how he had been overcome when School Superintendent Patrick McGee and Assistant Superintendent Jenny Chan-Remka presented his family with a special gift remembering Domenic during the instrument presentation ceremony.
The instruments went to Kayleigh Deorsy, Abigail Orlando, Alexandre Alpen, Ethan Fraticelli Flores, Dereck Serrano, Harley Mosher Love, My’Asia Smith, Charlotte Lewis, Brayden Bootland, William Bracket, Janessa DiezMelo, Kailey Ferreira, Jeffrey Arnold, Jayden Sanchez, Mercedes Medina, Jacob Orlando, Andrew Loggins and Enies Perez.
After receiving her new flute, My’Asia Smith said she really liked it and noted it will allow her to expand her music abilities. “I just wanted to play something different from the trumpet,” Smith, a member of the middle school band, said. “I really appreciate that they gave me one because the one I was using at school belonged to someone else and when they went home, I had nothing to use,” she said.
Jayden Sanchez had a similar story to tell while noting the trumpet he used as a loaner from school had sticky valves. “It was really nice of them to spend all that money to get us new trumpets and instruments,” he said. “That is actually what we need,” Sanchez added.
Brayden Bootland was given a set of drums and got to sit in at the set while his dad, John, looked on.
“This is sick, it’s cool,” the middle school band member said. His dad said he wasn’t quite ready to set up the drums at home on Wednesday. “I’ve got to get my ear plugs first,” he said while joking with Brayden.