Kai Keltner teamed up with his orchestra director to form the Davis High School Strings Tutoring Program back in fall 2019 in order to start tutoring younger students. Now, the program has evolved into a nonprofit with a “goal of building and connecting music tutoring programs worldwide,” according to their website.
The Davis High School String Tutoring Program connects high school musicians to middle school and elementary students in Davis. Classes cost $15 per hour, but scholarships are available. The program operated through in-person lessons until the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
Angelo Moreno, the orchestra director of both the Davis Senior High School and Holmes Jr. High Orchestra programs, worked to help “create a vision” for the Davis High Strings Tutoring Program. He also sought out recruits similar to Keltner — a junior at Davis Senior High and a violist — to work with the DHS-Holmes Orchestra Boosters in order to make sure it was “a smooth process for both the students being tutored and our student tutors.”
Moreno said that the program ramped up to 25 tutors, and 75 participants in just two months. Programs were originally halted during the pandemic, but were eventually brought online.
A year after the program begin, a student from Texas who came across the program on a Google search reached out to them and asked how she could build a similar program at her school, according to Keltner.
