Source: Eurweb.com
One of the incredible things about being in this line of work is finding out things about people that you otherwise would have never known. Sheila told us about her charitable endeavor, which is no big surprise really. Many artists have charities. It’s a widely recognized tax shelter. But this one goes much deeper than that. Way deep!
“People can go online to my foundation,” she explained. “It’s called elevatehope.org. We raise money and use that to bring music to children in foster care. It’s to give them tools and give them hope to be creative and express themselves. One reason that’s important to me is because my Dad, for a couple years, he was left in an orphanage. Early on he put all our instruments in the car and said ‘As bad as we have it, even though we’re on welfare there’s always someone who is worse off than we are. So, let’s just go to these facilities and play for the kids and give them something. I know how it feels.’ My manager and I did Elevate Hope together. We found that the more people we talked to, more than half were molested or raped. I was raped at the age of 5 by a babysitter, and she was molested as well. Music was one of the healing parts of my life. It’s not like a book that we just read. We understand because we went through the same things. We know how music helped us to heal. Some of them have been so abused that they don’t know how to communicate and they don’t know how to express themselves. Music is a speaking piece for them to allow them to break down those barriers and those walls.”
Find out about the rest of Sheila’s influences and her upcoming performances at Eurweb.com.
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