Pickleberry Pie Inc. Annual Report 09

Pickleberry Pie Incorporated

Annual Report

July 2009

23 years of small projects with big impacts

The healing power of music:

Pickleberry Pie Inc., a public charity for children and families, has accomplished small music-oriented projects for over 23 years. We are unique in that we use our wide connections to children’s musicians and other performers to help kids directly. Our many projects are united by a single goal: to use the healing power of music and personal contact to improve the lives of kids and teens.

· We provide free monthly concerts and one to one entertainment for seriously ill children in 22 hospitals and one hospice nationwide.

· We are working with The Get Well Network to put on-demand, closed-circuit children’s music and stories in hospitals nationwide, free to families.

· We have pioneered a program with the Lance Armstrong Foundation to use the songwriting process to help teens living with cancer.

· We created the first national public network of free web-based radio channels for children, featuring ad-free lullabies, stories, and children singing.

· And we help families and schools connect with entertainment professionals and related services worldwide

Larry Saenz and friend from one of our hospitals

Our guiding principles:

Over the years Pickleberry Pie Incorporated has helped several million children. Yet our volunteer and local-based structure allows the needs of individual kids to stay in focus. When we put on a concert, we create one for specific children with specific needs. We don’t demand “numbers” in order to justify a concert.

Everything we do for kids, we do for free. We don’t rely on fancy logos or advertisements. There are no plastic Pickleberry dolls, no video games or celebrity photo-shoots. We don’t exploit kids. We have no paid administrators, no paid directors, no overhead, and no development costs.

Our Board of Directors is part of the process every step of the way. We “meet” online and email frequently, discussing projects and how best to utilize our volunteers. Almost all of our projects have been initiated by Board members. They are always thinking about how the Pickleberries can help kids. Again, there’s that phrase- it’s all about the kids.

We focus on the kids, not on ourselves.

Our History

Our volunteer organization was started in 1986 by Linda Arnold, P. J. Swift, and a small group of adults and kids. We saw a need for programs for young children in the national public radio system. We simply couldn't understand why no one was making such a series, and so we decided to create one! We eventually recorded over 500 half-hour programs, put together entirely by volunteers. “Pickleberry Pie” was the most popular young children's series on public radio. Our honors included the Gold Award from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in 1991, The American Women in Radio and Television Award, Parent's Choice and many other awards. Toward the end of the 80's, our volunteers started outreach activities in the San Francisco Bay Area. We created a program to teach songwriting to kids in elementary school, and then an entire radio channel for kids in hospitals called “Sprouts.

Kate, one of the hosts of Story in My Pocket on Kids Public Radio

The Hospital Concert Series

When we created the “Sprouts” closed circuit children's radio for Stanford's Packard Children's Hospital, we were reminded how healing music can be. Packard Hospital expressed an interest in a concert series and asked for our help. So our volunteers started a free monthly acoustic concert series for seriously ill children in Packard and Shriner's Hospital in San Francisco. Thirteen years later, thanks to the generosity of The Bernard Osher Foundation, the Wayne and Gladys Valley Foundation, The Margo and Irwin Winkler Charitable Trust, and other funders, we’ve expanded to over 200 concerts in 22 hospitals and one hospice nationwide, serving about 40,000 children and their families yearly. Current locations include Oakland, San Francisco, San Jose, San Leandro, Fremont, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, Portland, Austin, Chicago, Houston, Northern Virginia, Baltimore, and Washington D.C.

Musical performances such as Pickleberry Pie’s are an important part of

the healing process, and can make the hospital environment much less intimidating.

It can lift kids’ spirits in a very special way.

Jamie Gentille, Director Child Life Services, Inova Fairfax Hospital for Children

If kids want to play kazoos, we play kazoos. This is D.C. performer Carol Boyd Leon

Local and Adaptable

We can be adaptable because we're small and locally-run. Our concert series is planned, scheduled, and managed entirely by the local co-ordinators of Pickleberry Pie: all the hospital staff has to do is publicize the concert to their patients and staff. Because we are well-connected to children's music, we hand pick the entertainers for the concerts, selecting people we know and trust. Frankly, it takes a special person to do this: we know the people who can. We pay our entertainers well, assuring an individualized, site-specific performance each time. Our entertainers are given strict guidelines and supervision, created in conjunction with hospital staff, to insure that their performance is upbeat and comforting.

Clapping along at Georgetown

Many people question how we can do so much with less than $70,000 in our annual budget. Over 23 years, we’ve learned how to put our funds where they matter most. Where possible, we use volunteers. We work smart: when we know a performer is coming to a hospital vicinity, we will book that performer for additional Pickleberry concerts. We pay for multiple locations and get a discount. And we generally use performers for weekday performances which do not conflict with a performer’s weekend concerts.

All of the money connected with the hospital series goes directly to entertain kids in the location that it is raised. We can do this because we have absolutely no centralized costs-

no development or fundraising, no overhead, no administrative costs.

Everything we raise goes directly to the kids

Carol Boyd Leon helps raise spirits with a bedside visit.

We've had a great variety of multicultural performers in our many concerts – from singers to storytellers to clowns to magicians. All performers strive to involve the kids in the concert, using rhythm instruments, group singing, and collaborative storytelling where possible. Small, participatory concerts are crucial to the success of our program. What these kids need most is personal attention.

My favorite little patient was a girl who is having chemo (no hair) with the most infectious smile.
She was very shy and I couldn't get her to come into the playroom at first...she kept peeking in from the waiting room, and even when I brought her maracas to play, she gave them to her mom. But eventually, I started singing to her in the doorway and when I reached out my hand, she took it and came into the playroom and had a great time singing.

Joanie Bartels, Los Angeles performer

Jerry Falek stays after his performance at Oakland Children’s to help with a project

After every performance, the entertainers visit the kids who are not able to attend the group concerts and give them private concerts in their rooms. And all of our Pickleberry performers leave free CDs for the hospital library.

Some of our new Pickleberry volunteers in the Washington DC area

Current locations for Pickleberry Pie hospital concerts

Washington DC/Northern Virginia:

Inova Fairfax Hospital for Children

Georgetown University Hospital

Inova Fair Oaks Hospital

The Inova Kellar School

The Lab School of Washington

The Lab School of Baltimore

Kennedy Kreiger Institute

Johns Hopkins Hospital

Portland:

Shriners Hospital

Doernbecher Hospital

San Francisco Bay Area:

Oakland Children’s Hospital

UC San Francisco

California Pacific Medical Center

George Mark Children’s Hospice

Fremont School for the Blind and Deaf

Chandler-Tripp Facility

Santa Barbara Area:

Cottage Hospital

Hollister Facility

Los Angeles:

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center

UCLA Children’s Hospital

Chicago:

Chicago Memorial Children’s Hospital

Texas:

Texas Children’s Hospital, Houston

Dell Children’s Hospital, Austin

This past year, Pickleberry Pie partnered with the Get Well Network to put wholesome music and stories at parents’ fingertips in hospitals nationwide. Right now, most hospital systems just carry broadcast television and videos of puppies. No kidding. So we worked with our community of children’s entertainers to collect DVDs of musical concerts, storytelling, and other appropriate entertainment . We are piloting the program now. We hope this new form of entertainment synergy will ease the anxiety of hospital stays for parents and for children. Funds raised through this collaboration will support the expansion of the hospital concert series in new and enhanced locations such as Denver, Washington DC, and Sacramento.

For the past several years, our Pickleberry volunteers have been quietly partnering on a project with KUSP-FM, our local NPR affiliate public radio station. Our goal is to help public stations nationwide finally address their most neglected audience: children. To that end, our Pickleberry volunteers have combined new and existing children’s programs to create a free internet-based, multi-channel network for kids. You can see and hear it at www.kidspublicradio.org We launched in December 2008 with two channels:

We hope to expand to five channels by 2010. Our roster of donated programs features award-winning series such as Kinetic City Supercrew Science series, Rabbit Ears Radio, Kids Earth and Sky, and Scholastic News for Kids. It’s a forward thinking project, one that educates and respects children worldwide in the way that non-commercial broadcasting does best.

Kids recording a radio drama… written by kids, performed by kids, broadcast on KPR

Where we could not find existing series for use on the network, we made them. Thus, Lullaby features a classic jazz lullaby program with artists from Ella Fitzgerald to Bing Crosby, and a classic rock lullaby program called, of course, ‘We Will Rock You.” We even have a program hosted by an imaginary kitten called Classical Catnap. And Pipsqueaks, our newest channel, has kids singing and favorite sing alongs… just right for families to sing together.

Our free programming is available on multiple platforms, including internet streaming and podcasting. A strong component of Kids Public Radio is the connection with teachers and parents to help promote reading activities at home and at school. To that end, we use teacher forum sites to provide detailed technical help to produce material for use on the channels, such as kid-voiced book reports, “News” reports, and Reader’s Theatre productions.

Kids’ Public Radio’s webcasting costs and teacher support activities are funded by public donations via PayPal on our site.

For thirteen years, Pickleberry Pie, Inc. has been the fiscal agent and parent organization for The Children's Music Web, a non-profit resource for families worldwide. The Children's Music Web is entirely self-supporting through small individual contributions and program service revenue. Our site, www.childrensmusic.org , has had four million visitors over the years. The site features song suggestions for teachers, links to music education organizations, and tips on creating songs and audio by kids and for kids. This year, we linked the Children’s Music Web and Kids Public Radio together.

Our Pickleberry Pie, Incorporated Board of Directors (see last page) meets on-line frequently during the year. Our Executive Committee meets on-line at least twice a month. During these meetings, the following goals and objectives were set for the coming year:

· Objective: Raise funds to continue the free monthly “Hospital Concert Series” for 24 children's hospitals nationwide, and begin expansion to other locations. Outcome: 250 concerts and 5 hospice visits by noted children's artists, presented free of charge.

· Objective: Expand the pilot project to place wholesome DVDs for kids in 20 hospitals nationwide. Material will be donated by children’s artists and organized by Pickleberry volunteers. We will use funds collected through this collaboration to fund the expansion of the Hospital Concert Series.

· Objective: Continue to develop free, non commercial channels for kids on the internet. Use existing public stations to publicize the channels. Develop strong teacher technical support program to generate “book reports” and other student-made audio material for the channels. Potential to serve millions of kids and families.

· Objective: Continue free services, including information for parents and teachers. Outcome: 800,000 visits by July 2010, representing continued public awareness and use of the site.

Although we are a volunteer organization, we do have expenses. We rely on foundations which have goals similar to ours to support most of the Hospital concert series in various locations. We frankly couldn’t do it without them, and we thank them deeply. Our radio/webcasting activities are supported by program service revenue and individual donations. Please note that we have a significant fund balance at the end of each year because we receive funds for programs implemented in the following year.

All other expenses (rent, telephone, administrative, development etc) are in-kind donations or volunteer. We estimate that these in-kind costs total over $200,000 per year.

Greta Pedersen, Pickleberry and local co-ordinator in Portland, was recently named

2009 National Artist of the Year by the National Young Audiences Association

We have no administrative, development, or overhead- all monies raised go directly to the projects

P.J. Swift, special education teacher, Treasurer and volunteer CEO, Santa Cruz CA

It was Lisa’s hard work and advocacy for children that launched our Hospital Concert series in the Bay Area many years ago.

Printing, Postage and Shipping	2,943
Supplies, Equipment, Rhythm Inst, Internet	2,988
Consultants (entertainers and local co-ordinators)	37, 011
TOTAL	42,942