What’s Hear Your Song?

Hear Your Song is a nonprofit dedicated to empowering youth living with chronic illnesses to make their voices heard through songwriting and music production! We’ve been a nonprofit organization for 5 years. We’re so proud of the 700+ youth songwriters who have created more than 900 songs with us in those years with the support of over 500 extraordinary volunteer songwriting mentors, musicians, and lyric video creators.

At the heart of our work is an individualized, kid-driven process that puts every youth songwriter in the driver’s seat of a creative process that totally belongs to them. Hear Your Song gives POWER and CHOICE to young people who seldom have much of either power or choice in navigating their health care journeys.

While we’re a New York City-based organization, we love collaborating with youth songwriters virtually all over the US and beyond. That’s why our 5K for 5 Years celebrates both our NYC community and our virtual community too.

All of our programs are completely free of charge.

To hear lots of the songs that youth songwriters have created, please subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow us on Instagram.

When and where will the 5K for 5 Years take place?

The 5K for 5 Years is a hybrid race: that means you can sign up to participate virtually OR in-person. If you want to participate in person, sign up for the IN-PERSON race on Sunday, November 23rd at 10:30 am in Prospect Park. If you want to participate virtually, sign up for the VIRTUAL race anytime, anywhere between Sunday, November 23rd and Tuesday, December 2nd.

What do I have to do to participate?

1) SIGN UP: Register for either the in-person or virtual race HERE. There is no required registration free, but you can make a donation to Hear Your Song if you choose during the registration process. When you register, you will automatically be emailed a link to your personal fundraiser page.

2) SPREAD THE WORD & FUNDRAISE: In the lead-up to the race, we encourage you to post about the 5K for 5 Years of Hear Your Song on social media, using the hashtag #HYS5Kfor5years, and link to your fundraiser page. You can also email or text your fundraiser page to friends and family.

3) COMPLETE THE RACE: On November 23rd (if you’re participating in person) or between November 23rd-December 2nd (if you’re participating virtually), complete a 5K run, walk, or roll and share your journey through photos or video on social media using the hashtag #HYS5Kfor5years!

How much do I have to pay to participate? How much should I fundraise?

Registration is FREE for all participants. We hope that ALL participants in the race will fundraise to help Hear Your Song continue to grow over the NEXT five years. We recommend that participants set a personal goal of $500. Our collective goal for the race is to raise $10,000 by December 2nd.

I’m not a runner. Is this event for me?

Absolutely! This is a “Run, Walk, or Roll” 5K which means you can travel in whatever way and at whatever pace is comfortable for you over a 5K distance (3.1 miles). Participants of all abilities and all ages are encouraged to sign up!

If I’m participating in the IN-PERSON 5K on November 23rd, where do I show up?

On November 23rd, in-person participants will gather at the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Memorial Arch outside of Prospect Park at Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn, NY between 10 am and 10:15 am. This is right next to the 2/3 Grand Army Plaza subway station. We’ll then make our way inside Prospect Park all together at about 10:20 am before beginning the race promptly at 10:30 am. We’ll complete almost one full Inner Loop of Prospect Park (traveling clockwise) before ending with a picnic near our finish line by Meadowport Arch.

What happens if it rains on November 23rd?

In the event of inclement weather that impacts the safety of the race, we’ll be in touch with all participants by email. If the race is rained out, all participants can complete the race virtually by December 2nd.

Are there prizes?

Yes! There aren’t prizes for completing the race the fastest (we love you all at your personal best!!), but there ARE prizes for engaging your community in the lead-up to the race.

The participant who brings in the MOST UNIQUE DONORS will win a very special $50 gift certificate and a Hear Your Song T-shirt.

The participant who brings in the HIGHEST DONATION TOTAL will win a very special $50 gift certificate and a Hear Your Song T-shirt.

ALL PARTICIPANTS who complete the race and engage donors on their fundraising pages will be entered into a raffle to win additional gift certificates and Hear Your Song swag.

ALL PARTICIPANTS who raise AT LEAST $100 will hear a personalized musical shoutout on our Instagram in the lead-up to the race!

There’s a lot of charities out there. Why should I support Hear Your Song?

There ARE a lot of amazing charities with a lot of need right now. We’ve been so humbled to hear from families — and our kids themselves — about the impact of Hear Your Song on young people’s lives. We know that, in the midst of the trauma of facing a chronic illness, having consistent, caring adults show up again and again for you can make all the difference. We’re proud to have been those adults for many of the youth songwriters in our community, mentors and friends that our wildly talented kids know they can depend on to be there for them and to be willing to listen to whatever they want to share.

For a long time, we’ve believed that musical collaboration between a child and a professional musician is an incredibly powerful act of demonstrating our shared humanity — when we set a kid’s lyric to music or help them hear the melody in their head aloud or inspire them to find the perfect beat or support them to feel comfortable singing on their own song, we’re letting them know that their words and perspective matter.

We’re also letting them know that they are artists deserving of being celebrated; they are so much more than just their diagnoses. 

One moment early on in our history as an organization,13-year-old Christopher was on his second song and, at the start of a Zoom session, he asked, “Why are Hear Your Song people always so happy?” It’s not a fluke: our staff and volunteers are always so happy because it’s endlessly joyful to see kids, as one mom put it recently, “step into their power” and tell their stories on their own terms. We’re always surprised, we’re always delighted, we’re always grateful to do this whimsical, wondrous work.

What if I have more questions?

Email your questions to hys@hearyoursong.org or DM us @hearyoursonghys on Instagram.