Sing it Forward: Paying Molly to Do Ridiculous Things

So as some of you already know, I’m trying really hard to go to the annual conference of the American Music Therapy Association (AMTA). I originally calculated that it would cost about $400 for the trip, but I gravely underestimated hotel costs and it will probably be a little over $500. That might not be a whole lot of money if I were perhaps an established professional and not a student. I really can’t afford it on my own money, and that is why I need your help.

HOWEVER. I don’t just want to take your money without paying it forward in some way. I can’t do a lot of donating money-wise (naturally), so for every $50 donated, I am going to do something silly. I will also donate at least two hours of time per $50 benchmark to volunteer in my community. I don’t know exactly which charity or charities will receive my help because I’m not sure which ones will be welcoming volunteers, but I will do my best to choose organizations that align with my own values. If you donate and have a reason to dislike whichever volunteer opportunities I choose, please let me know why and I’ll find a different organization.

I’ll do my best to record my progress, my silliness, and my volunteering through text, photos, and videos on this Tumblr page.

At $50, I will attempt to give myself a vacuum cleaner hickey.
At $100, I will convince 50 strangers to dance with me.
At $150, I will dress up as a giant slice of pizza and sing in public for one hour.
At $200, I will consume one shot of ketchup by itself.
At $250, I will shave my legs … in an elevator.
At $300, I will watch one full hour of Nyan Cat. And nothing else.
At $350, I will spend an entire day with “Please don’t look at this zit!” and an arrow pointing to a zit on my face.
At $400, I will write a song about my most embarrassing moment and perform it in a public space.
At $450, I will blenderize a Wendy’s Baconator with heavenly hash ice cream and Sunny D, then drink it.
At $500, I will shave my head (if long enough, the hair will be donated to Wigs for Kids).

You can send money via the purple “Support” buttons on my personal Tumblr and on the Sing it Forward Tumblr page. Even $5 makes a big difference.

I totally understand if you can’t donate anything (welcome to me!). If you could give this a signal boost, though, that would be a huge help! Thank you so much!

And in case you were wondering, if I am suddenly unable to go to the conference (if I don’t raise enough funds, I have a family emergency, there’s a midterm during the conference, etc.), all funds raised will go directly to AMTA via donation, since that’s where they would have gone anyway.

If you want to know why this conference is so important to me, look under the cut!

I am currently a music therapy student at the University of Windsor. I’m really fond of my program (HEY WINDSOR, YOU SHOULD KEEP THE MUSIC THERAPY PROGRAM) for many reasons, one in particular being that Windsor is the only school in North America that is accredited by both the Canadian Association of Music Therapy (CAMT) and AMTA. That means that if I were so inclined to work in the States later in life, I could actually do that.

Now, while I am fairly certain that I will not be moving to the States, I do really want to know about the US American perspective of music therapy and to examine its similarities and differences to both Canada’s and my personal views on the matter. Music therapy is far more developed in the States (hey you people complaining about how there’s only like 70 music therapy schools in the States: You know how many BMT programs there are in Canada? FIVE. SOON TO BE FOUR) and I think it would be incredibly exciting to see if that means it’s at all different from Canadian music therapy.

And that is why I really really really want to go to the AMTA conference. Also, I’m the moderator of Fuck Yeah Music Therapy! How could I not go?