Five Questions With: Sarah Bernstein

"We could not have grown our programs as tremendously and successfully as we have without our volunteers and donors, who are deeply invested in seeing the organization succeed."

Sarah Bernstein is chairwoman of the board of directors of Girls Rock! Rhode Island, a music and empowerment-based nonprofit. She also works as the director of operations at The Learning Community, a public charter school in Central Falls. Under Bernstein’s leadership, the board of Girls Rock! Rhode Island has more than tripled its budget and the number of participants served.

PBN: How did Girls Rock! Rhode Island come about and when did it become a nonprofit?
BERNSTEIN:
Girls Rock! RI started as a conversation around a kitchen table in 2008. Hilary Jones – our current executive director — asked a group of local musicians and organizers to help start a rock and roll camp for girls. Hilary had volunteered at a similar camp in Brooklyn, N.Y., and was inspired to support the creative voices of young women in Rhode Island. The first Girls Rock Camp was in 2009 and we officially became a nonprofit in 2011.

PBN: What are Girls Rock and Ladies Rock camps and how do they further your mission?
BERNSTEIN:
Picture this: you show up at a place you’ve never been before for five days to learn a new instrument. You mill around with people you just met, perhaps talking briefly about your favorite band and kinds of music. Then you form a band, learn that new instrument, write a song, and perform it five days later. Live, in front of a crowd of hundreds. Along the way, you make new friends, participate in workshops, design band t-shirts, meet with professional musicians, and have a lot of laughs. That’s Girls Rock Camp. The Ladies Rock Camp works the same way, but lasts three days.
It’s risk taken at one of its highest forms – doing something new and creative with a bunch of strangers, and then showcasing that work in front of hundreds of people. And yet every single participant has done this. Every time. And usually bearing a giant smile. Campers can take this power that they feel and apply it to their everyday lives, remembering that confidence when they witness bullying at school or have a conflict at work.
One of my favorite parts of the showcase – when hundreds of fans show up to cheer on these newly minted musicians – is to watch the audience. Whether it’s a three-year-old holding up a sign that says “You Rock, Mom,” a younger sister beaming up at the stage as her teenage sister and her friends share their song loudly and proudly or fans of our work who believe in the power of young women’s voices, I am always struck by the ways that we are creating a new normal for these audience members, full of more powerful, loud, and confident young women.

PBN: How many girls have participated to date, how many are participating this year and how are you increasing involvement?
BERNSTEIN:
Since our first Girls Rock Camp in 2009, we have served more than 500 girls and women, in camps, afterschool programs, and group lessons.
We have grown tremendously since our first camp of 30 campers, growing to two camps this summer that will serve more than 90 participants. We also offer robust year-round programming, including group lessons at our space in Providence, a variety of different afterschool programs at partner schools like Sophia Academy, and our Youth Action Council, in which teens meet up monthly to gather around topics such as media literacy, continuing to play after camp, and offering feedback on the nonprofit’s ongoing expansion.
Via these programs, we have served upwards of 120 participants this past year, and expect that number to nearly double this coming year as our programs continue to grow.
We are committed to keeping our programs growing and accessible no matter a participant’s background or financial situation. Two-thirds of our youth participants receive scholarships, half of which are full scholarships. We are also expanding thanks to partnerships; we are currently offering a choral program at Sophia Academy, and have worked with Roger Williams, Del Sesto, and Gilbert Stuart middle schools in Providence via a partnership with the Providence Afterschool Alliance.

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PBN: The mission’s premise is that music can empower young women to be confident and creative, and in some cases, leaders. How have young women achieved that based on involvement in your group?
BERNSTEIN
: A few years ago, we had many campers who had participated for in camp for years, and they knew they had more to offer us. They wanted to help make camp as awesome for other campers as it had been for them. And they had some ideas about making it even better.
In 2013, we developed the GRIT (Girls Rock Internship and Training) Program, which allowed us to more effectively support campers as they took on leadership roles. Our GRITs assist in instrument instruction, gear management, and daily workshops that develop skills from screen printing to critical thinking. GRITs also have a band of their own, and perform their own song at the showcase. They helped us to design this program, and it’s better than we ever could have dreamed of because of their assistance.
This past summer, the cohort of GRITs from 2013 insisted on coming back to camp to find even more ways to help out and give back. They managed the documentation of camp, writing a daily blog that captures the experience of camp more convincingly than we ever had, ran workshops, and more. We look forward to continually learning from them as they step into leadership roles and help to deepen the nonprofit’s work.

PBN: How many volunteers and donors do you have? In what ways are you positioning the organization to fortify its volunteer and donor base?
BERNSTEIN
: Our volunteers and donors are the backbone of our organization. In 2014 alone, we had upwards of 40 volunteers and 200 donors.
Our camps rely almost exclusively on volunteers, who teach small group instrument lessons, facilitate the workshops, coach bands through their songwriting processes, move gear, and so much more! One unintended benefit of our programs has been the volunteer community that has emerged, as volunteers have gotten to know each other, forge new relationships, form new bands, and support each other’s learning.
We could not have grown our programs as tremendously and successfully as we have without our volunteers and donors, who are deeply invested in seeing the organization succeed. We seek to keep our donors closely connected to our programs so that they can share in our successes. They get to see the impact of our programing at performances. We’ve had donors tell us: “I wish I had a Girls Rock camp when I was a kid,” or “I want to make sure girls rock is around for my daughter.”

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