For The Kids: The Asbury Park Music + Film Festival Mission
The Asbury Park Music + Film Festival isn’t just world premieres, Hollywood stars, top-line concerts and industry panels – it’s also a nonprofit endeavor to benefit the underserved youth of Asbury Park and surrounding areas.
“The more money the festival raises the more music related programming we can offer the underserved youth of Asbury Park and the surrounding areas,” says Tom Donovan, longtime media executive and co-founder of the Asbury Park Music + Film Festival. “Children’s interest in music and related fields – as a DJ, an engineer or what have you - is wide ranging and our goal is to be of value to as many kids as possible. A confident, engaged, caring, team player becomes a very productive person in our community.
One of the festival’s beneficiaries, the Asbury Park Music Foundation, works to preserve the city’s music legacy by providing life-changing music education, and then using that artform to unite its diverse communities.
“There’s a huge population in Asbury Park that would not be able to afford music lessons were it not for the festival’s contributions,” says Eileen Chapman, an Asbury Park Music Foundation board member and longtime champion of the city’s music scene. “It has been such an important resource, and it has been amazing to watch all of this happen and grow, and springboard out of the Music + Film Festival.”
Last year, the APMFF donated $100,000 to the Foundation, money which Chapman says has benefited a number of different initiatives.
“We’re able to facilitate programs at Lakehouse Music Academy, and make those programs available to children who otherwise wouldn’t have had opportunities to study or learn music.”
“These programs impact not only the students,” she says, “but the entire community - because as they learn to make music, they receive opportunities play to the public on bigger stages. And people come out to see it! So it not only gives kids visibility, but it gives the community so much to look forward to.”
The festival and its beneficiaries are also playing a role in uniting a diversity of students into sharing their influences and creating new art in the process.
“We have a program now where we have kids from the Hip-Hop Institute creating mashups with the Lakehouse students – so it’s kids who rap, coming together with kids who are songwriting and playing music, uniting with kids who want to dance… It’s bringing completely different parts of communities together. They would not have met each other or had these opportunities before.”
In the end, Chapman says, the Asbury Park Music + Film Festival has become part of the city’s allure -- one steeped in a long history of appreciation for music and film.
“There has always been music in Asbury Park, from the earliest days of the boardwalk, with pavilions and music built with in mind, to Convention Hall, where organ players were commissioned by the city to play throughout the summer,” she notes. “And there were so many film houses -- the Baronet, the Paramount, the St. James, the Savoy. Music and film have always been important to the identity to Asbury Park.”
“We know that music is a powerful, uniting tool especially among young people,” Donovan says. “It serves as the great equalizer to economic and social differences and creates a wonderful environment for both learning and growing as an individual. Students that experience our programs are more confident in themselves, respect each other and understand that our diversity is our greatest strength.”
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The Asbury Park Music & Film Festival provides music education to underserved youth in and around Asbury Park, New Jersey. Funding supports the Asbury Park Music Foundation, the Hip Hop Institute, and Lakehouse Music Academy programs. The festival also delivers high-tech music education to students and provides after-school programming at schools in Asbury Park, Long Branch, Red Bank and Bradley Beach. The Festival also supports Lady of Mt. Carmel and the Boys & Girls Club of Monmouth County. APMFF offers scholarship opportunities and a commitment to musical excellence which affords life-changing experiences.