MARY KAY HOFFMAN FUND
The PVS Youth Orchestra, Strings for Kids, and Artspace Community Arts Center were all established in whole or in part by Mary Kay Hoffman, an inimitable champion for youth music education, who passed away in February 2023. You can read a beautiful obituary by Mary Kay's family here. Mary Kay's legacy lives on through the hundreds of students who have passed through these music education programs and will do so in the future. In collaboration with Mary Kay's family, we are honored to manage the Mary Kay Hoffman Fund for youth musicians. The fund was created for students 18 and under in the local community who need financial support to access the education programs offered by the PVS. Families of students may apply for subsidized rates for any of the expenses listed below:
-
Private lesson tuition through the PVS's music school
-
PVS Youth Orchestra fees
-
Strings for Kids tuition
-
Instrument rental or repair through the PVS
​​​​
Application Process:
​To request financial support, please read the following guidelines, and then fill out a Google Form application (link below). If you have any trouble accessing or following this application process, please email music@pvso.org or call 413-773-3664.
Our staff reviews applications on a rolling basis. Applicants can expect to hear back from us within two weeks of submitting a application. We will approve as many applicants as possible. If requesting ongoing support, such as for weekly private lessons, continued support will be contingent on showing up for lessons, communicating in advance when needing to change a lesson, and satisfactory progress on the instrument, which requires practicing at home. We will ask you to fill out this form once a year to reassess your financial need. Support cannot be granted retroactively.
​​​
Context for figuring out how much to pay:
​
The Pioneer Valley Symphony is a small non-profit organization that produces high-quality arts programming for music lovers of all ages, including orchestra concerts, choral concerts, and education programs. We are able to do this through tuition fees, member dues, ticket sales, grants, and donations from individuals. We rely on each of those to maintain our financial health.
The process for accessing the Mary Kay Hoffman Fund is based on various sliding scale models, and we ask you to consider how much you can afford to pay when you apply. The more that each person pays, the more there is to go around. We ask that people pay something if they can. We would like every young person in our community to be able to participate in the programs we offer, and understand that some people may be able to afford very little or nothing. We offer the scale below (adapted from Little Red Bird Botanicals) as an invitation to consider how class background, finances, and privilege impact what you can pay.
​
Consider paying less on the scale if you..
-
are supporting children or have other dependents
-
have significant debt
-
have medical expenses not covered by insurance
-
are eligible for public assistance
-
have immigration-related expenses
-
are an elder with limited financial support
-
are an unpaid community organizer
-
are a returning citizen who has been denied work due to incarceration history
-
experience discrimination in hiring or pay level
-
are descended from enslaved people or First Nations/Indigenous people
Consider paying more on the scale if you:
-
own the home you live in
-
have investments, retirement accounts, or inherited money
-
travel for recreation
-
have access to family money and resources in times of need
-
work part time or are unemployed by choice, including unemployment due to full-time school
-
have a relatively high degree of earning power due to level of education (or gender and racial privilege, class background, etc.). Even if you are not currently exercising your earning power, we ask you to recognize this as a choice.
​​​
​
​
​If you'd like to fortify the Mary Kay Hoffman Fund with a tax-deductible gift and honor Mary Kay Hoffman's legacy while supporting the PVS's commitment to accessibility, please use the button below.
​
​
​
​
​​​​​​​​​​​​​​