I think it would be useful to have an understanding of the way hospitals are run as a business. Are the clinics and practices owned by the hospital or separate organizations that contract with them? If you could create it as a service and contract with them to provide the service with outside funding, that might be a way in, but you would still have to raise the funding.

Lots of nursing homes and assisted living centers are always looking for free entertainment, either in the lobby or as little “concerts” for their residents. Call the facility and ask to speak to their Activities Director.

Ask if your local hospital has a PlaneTree Program and Coordinator. They also have an Entertainment component and are often looking for free music in the lobby and hallways.

You don’t need any therapeutic musician training to do this kind of volunteer entertainment — just the chops to perform in public.

— Alice in windy Wyoming

If you are going to do entertainment programs please ask around with musicians and even facility staff to see if they have a budget for paid performance.

Jennifer is absolutely right — make sure that by volunteering you are not undercutting paid performers. I live in a very small town and was not thinking about the bigger picture in my previous post.

As far as music, Deb, you’re right, Angie Bemiss has some great books of mostly sight-readable arrangements (for some people). You might also pick up “Favorites of the 40s” or “Favorites of the 50s” fake books and see what you can do to develop some easy arrangements of things like ‘Tennessee Waltz’ and other old-time tunes. Remember that these residents will love music of their teen and young-adult years. Irish music like ‘My Wild Irish Rose’ and ‘When Irish Eyes are Smiling’ are always well received. Sylvia Woods has two good books of familiar Scottish and familiar Irish music. Ray Pool, Frank Voltz and Verlene Schermer are all