Bernie St. Louis Speaks at CSRC Meeting Dec. 8

Posted on Dec 13, 2016
 
 
 
 
Rotarian Bernie St. Louis gave a detailed talk about the history and activities of the San Juan Cosala Junior Philharmonic Orchestra. It began with Marvin Hartkup and the Golden Strings of Chapala many years ago.  He had hoped that the musical training they offered could lead to some professional classical musicians from Lakeside.  It struggled for 15 years, in part because it had no master plan and lacked overall structure and governance.
 
Now, re-organized in the past few years, they have a new key mission – to keep kids off the streets and help give them a new passion. The JPO’s Board of Directors includes Gustavo and Dan Medeles. They have a new location, increased funding, proper instructors and instruments and lots of students. In some ways, it’s become a life-skills training program for 6 – 14 year olds – a street rescue program.
 
The Operation Feed building has been used until now for the classes, but it’s not large enough.  Bernie has also arranged for proper PR in the village to gain community support.  The AC (non-profit status) documents for Golden Strings have been revamped for this new organization, and they can issue charitable tax receipts. 
 
Their first call for students (in 2013) resulted in 61 applicants and they soon started looking for funding from the Jalisco Ministry of Culture. They started with a choir which gave a concert in 2015, and received instruments and started instrument training classes soon after. Now they travel many places to perform using a donated bus. They’ve raised money to send some members to Costa Rica for a start-up orchestra competition. 

The Ministry of Culture has offered them a grant of 322,000 pesos, primarily for teacher salaries, but the Ministry now has more strict requirements for programs and facilities, so they must look for another location. A building has been offered with a 10-year lease, but it needs remodelling. They have a planned 2017 budget of 172,000 pesos – primarily for building maintenance and instruments.