South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Songwriter donates $50K for children’s music room
Grammy-nominated songwriter and philanthropist Ali Tamposi recently donated $50,000 to the First Haitian Baptist Church’s Children’s Christmas Gift Giveaway for its new enrichment center in Belle Glade.
With its groundbreaking scheduled for February, the center will be 4,500 square feet and replace the old building from the 1940s that houses the after-school program for children in kindergarten through eighth grade.
Tamposi’s Creative Waves Foundation is contributing $50,000 to fund the music room, which includes 50 guitars and microphones already received.
Additionally, the foundation also created a program called Song Start that will provide an online music education platform and curriculum led by A-list artists and industry professionals.
Also, during the event, children received shoes and socks donated by the Margate-based In Jacob’s Shoes Foundation as well as toys and gift cards donated by Sovereign Order of St. John of Jerusalem Knights Hospitaller of the Palm Beaches.
The Sovereign Order and the church have raised $600,000 to fund the new enrichment center, but about $600,000 more is needed to complete the project, which will feature six classrooms, an office, entry area, music room, covered patio, adjacent kitchen, playground green space and a parking area that will include a basketball court.
Children also will receive help with homework, a hot meal, career training, music, coding and teacher training as well as transportation from school and back home.
Tamposi, 30, a native of West Palm Beach, is best known for co-writing Kelly Clarkson’s hit single “Stronger (What Doesn’t Kill You).” She lives in Malibu, but her family still lives in Palm Beach County.
The church is asking the community to help by donating at SOSJPB.org.
All funds will go directly to the Belle Glade project.