Create Now - Programs / music

Click here to learn about our "Create A Mural Now" workshops, where youth work as a team to design and create a mural. The theme can fit your needs. Each project culminates with a party and gift bags for all participants.

Music Programs - Sound Off

We have five main areas within our music program which include: private lessons, group lessons, music appreciation, motivational drumming and rap workshops, and music talent shows. The young artists are guided in their careers as their original music is developed. We bring them to professional recording studios where they can create demos of their songs. Also, through music mentoring, Create Now is able to match aspiring young musicians with professionals, opening new doors for troubled youth.

Featured Program: Mentoring Through Music

by Jerence Owens

While working in the mental health field as a Behavioral Specialist for 12 years, I noticed a lot of the needs of our foster youth were still not being met. My call to action was to form a non-profit Foundation called Visionary Voices For Youth in 2002, which was the beginning of a journey to offer outreach services.

Mentoring thru music has become a vehicle to give youth a chance to be heard by their families, staff and peers. By using writing exercises, creating music, and modeling performance techniques, I found that this creative environment gave our youth the tools to build self-esteem and self-image. As a Foundation, our goal is to continue to partner with more organizations like Create Now in a fight to help give our foster youth the tools to unlock their creative identities.

Partnering with Create Now has been an awesome opportunity to give back to the community. I mentor nine foster boys ages 11-15 at Hathaway-Sycamores, a large residential facility. I’m volunteering on a weekly basis by using music to help give our youth a positive way to express themselves. At the start of the program, most of the youth had a hard time expressing themselves without using inappropriate language and behaviors, and not working well with other peers.

Read the rest of Jerrence's Story

Featured Program: Music Days with Mark Schulman

Mark Schulman has been playing drums since he was three-years-old. Practice paid off! He’s so good at it that he’s spent the last few years traveling around the world with P!nk. Before that, he toured with Cher for three years, and has also performed with Sheryl Crow, Billy Idol, Destiny’s Child, Stevie Nicks and Foreigner, amongst many other top musicians.

In addition, Mark presents an amazing motivational seminar called “Find Your Rhythm” for corporations like IBM, Mattel, Cisco, McDonald’s and universities such as M.I.T., Oklahoma State and Cal Poly. He shares stories about his life on the road as a world-class drummer, fused with his experience of surviving testicular cancer.

Read About Some of Our Previous Featured Music Programs

Music Days at Upward Bound House
A Beat of their Own at Upward Bound House
Guitar Workshop at Optimist Group Home

Special thanks to the sponsors of our Sound Off program

In-N-Out Burger Foundation, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, the Northrop Grumman Foundation and the Good News for Kids Foundation. We're very grateful to all of our sponsors.