NOTE FROM NICOLE: OCTOBER UPDATE

SMASH STAFF
1 day ago
2 min read

Updated: 1 day ago

Our Executive Director shares learnings from the summer, focus note-from-nicole-fall-forward-with-smashfor the fall, and ways you can help musicians stay healthy in the months ahead.

Dear SMASH Community,

For the past couple of months, we’ve been heads-down, working to help local musicians get healthy and stay healthy.

With laser focus, a tiny staff, a few clutch donations from community members, a list of devoted providers, and a handful of professional volunteers serving up time, talent and services, we’ve been able to whittle down waitlists and open up access to free-and-low-cost mental-health counseling, hearing protection, dental care, and physical exams.

As we streamline operations and build out programs, our focus will remain on serving our musician members with a compassionate, unbureaucratic scrappiness – “rock ’n’ roll” style – in an earnest attempt to fill in gaps left by the larger health care system.

Since joining SMASH as staff in June, I’ve had dozens of conversations with our community of musicians and supporters. One of my key takeaways is the need for a member-focused budget and strategic plan that rebalances our program-to-operating costs tilted in the benefit of our members. We’re on it, and, in this interim period, we must continue to do and deliver now while we plan and build for better.

We invite you to join us!

Your support is most helpful this fall in these forms:

We’ve got an essential-items drive going for our recently-launched SMASH Road Case. Purchase healthy essentials from our wishlist to help musicians stay healthy -- on and off the road.
Help us move more musicians off waitlists for mental health, dental care, hearing protection and more by making a donation to SMASH.
Help us bring more health service providers into our network. Ask your doctor, optometrist, dentist (even your acupuncturist, massage therapist, or other provider) if they’d be willing to donate 1-2 monthly spots for SMASH members. From there, you can reach out to Member Services and we will get it set up. Piece of cake!