About Us
What is Blue Star Connection?
BSC is non-profit organization dedicated to bringing music into the lives of children and young adults who are fighting cancer and other life-challenging situations.
We also work with musical therapists in various hospitals and clinics, and host fundraisers and benefit concerts in many cities around the country.
How Did Blue Star Connection Start?
On August 14th, 2005, the Grand County Blues Society was performing for the Shining Stars Foundation, a local group of children fighting cancer . After the show, John Catt struck up a conversation with 17-yr-old Colin Connors, a cancer patient from Denver, about playing guitar. When John asked Colin if he had a guitar of his own, his reply was “Yeah, a beat-up, old acoustic.” John asked him if he would play an electric guitar if he had one and Colin answered, “Anything to brighten my day.”
“What color?” John asked. Colin looked at his mom, who smiled and said, “Baby blue, like his eyes.”
Less than a week could pass before someone donated a baby-blue Ibanez electric guitar and amp, meant for Colin – a good deed was that simple.
A few weeks later John received an email from a doctor, Larry McCleary, who had worked with Colin and other children with cancer for decades. His message was profound; he had seen a dramatic change in Colin’s outlook. In the weeks ahead John and the Grand County Blues Society received messages from Colin that he had found other kids his age interested in learning music . In a few months, we had 5 new kids. It was then that a community of people knew Blue Star Connection was born.
Read Dr Larry’s Letter
How did Blue Star get its name?
The first few Blue Stars chose the name: “Blue” for our favorite music, “Star” because the kids are the Stars, and “Connection” because we connect these children to music and to each other.
Our Blue Star from India, Sneha, was working on our logo before she passed away. She said it is the symbol that defines her vision of what Blue Star meant to her and we continue that vision today.
Our Blue Stars
We have provided guitars, bass guitars, harmonicas, violins, keyboards, flutes and drum kits to more than 60 kids in the program. We have Blue Stars in Colorado, Texas, California, Washington, Hawaii, Rhode Island, Florida, Illinois, South Dakota, Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia, Nevada, Maryland, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Oklahoma, Oregon, Arizona and once upon a time, a beautiful girl named Sneha from New Delhi India.
We have lost seven of our Blue Stars – Devon, Sneha, Brandon, Shakiri, Adam, Amanda and Trevor. They are always with us as Blue Stars and their loved ones cherish the instrument that brought some peace and music into their lives.
Children’s Hospitals
In the past few years we have donated multiple instrument packages to numerous musical therapists working in children’s hospitals in Dallas, Denver, Cincinatti, Oakland, Pittsburg, Vanderbilt at Nashville, Kansas City, Oklahoma City and Seattle. Each hospital provides a list according to their needs; because of the continuous donations and benefit concerts, we able to fill the list and add a few more items. The biggest reward in return is hearing of the wonderful success stories and break-throughs that musical therapists have had with their patients.