Stories From Main Street: Charity Is Music To Sick Children's Ears
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Music can be medicine for the soul.
Sometimes the right song can make you feel happy.
"It kind of just takes your mind away from what you're going through," said Trevor Cookler. "A lot of people, whether you're in the hospital or not, are turning to music just to start their day, finish their day, get them through any problem that they're working through."
Stories From Main Street: Charity Is Music To Children's Ears
Cookler works for Apple. When he was earning an MBA at Mercy College, he designed a website for a budding nonprofit, a charity called Music Beats Hearts, and he then joined the team.
"Load the iPods up with about 300, 400 super happy and uplifting, inspirational songs, and then we'll take those iPods and we'll bring them to the hospitals and we'll give the iPods out to patients that need it," he explained to WCBS 880's Sean Adams.
The charities co-founders, Elie Maroun and Jordan Stern, work in entertainment, so Music Beats Hearts is getting buzz from the Kardashians and Victor Cruz of the New York Giants.
The concept is simple: Donations buy iPods for hospital patients.
"Getting the kids out of their rooms, where they're interacting with other kids, they're listening to music, we're taking the iPods out of the boxes -- one earbud in my ear, one earbud in their ear, listening to all their favorite songs," Cookler said. "When you have that kind of moment, that's exactly when you realize this is why we did this."
Most of the iPods go to sick children, although Music Beats Hearts will program a playlist for an older crowd.
The next step?
"My vision also is to at some point have a Music Beats Hearts app, where kids can log onto the app and talk to other kids and other patients around the country and around the world," Cookler said.
For more information about the charity, visit MusicBeatsHearts.org.
