Our Mission

What we do

“ We harness the power of music to improve the well-being of children and families around the world.  Though ukuleles and the support of music therapy, we give the gift of music for life. “

UKC provides ukuleles to hospitalized children. typically, a child is identified by her music therapist to be suitable for ukulele’s implementation as part of her music therapy sessions.  Then the music therapist introduces a UKC ukulele to the child and show her how to play the instrument. In many cases,  a child can sing a song as she plays the ukulele after learning just a few cords. The therapist and the child can sing and play together as well.  When the child goes home, she gets to keep that ukulele as her own. 

The goal of the music therapist is to help to care for the child emotionally, possibly help easing the pain, and shorten the recovery time by letting the child play the ukulele and  experience a healing effect and a joy of music.  This in turn will have a positive influence on the child’s parents and family as well.   Our hope is that the child continues with playing the ukulele after leaving the hospital and music continues to give for life.

Started in Florida, UKC’s work gradually expanded to the entire US giving out more than 7000 ukuleles to hospitalized children at more than 250 hospitals.  It now has expanded to UK, Canada, France, Mexico and China.