Make a joyful noise

Making a joyful noise

By Nina Culver

Current contributor

Project Joy, a group of volunteers dedicated to performing music for local senior citizens, is still going strong as it prepares to celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2022.

“We are planning a gala celebration for that,” said Jim Brink, who is on the group’s advisory council and is chair on the public relations committee.

Project Joy was founded by Marian Herzer in 1972. Herzer was the co-director of the Sinto Senior Center when she started a women’s chorus that would expand and become Project Joy. “She had some pull in the community and saw the need,” Brink said. “She pulled together a lot of people to perform.”

A lot of retirees live in Spokane and they need musical performances, he said. Project Joy includes soloists, duets and small groups that regularly visit local assisted living and retirement centers to perform. “We have 30 different performing groups,” he said. “We are called Project Joy for a reason. Our goal is to bring joy.”

Even after all these years of performing, Brink said the group isn’t as well known as it should be. “We’re not known and to that extent we’re not as well used as we could be,” he said.

Brink is a singer and either performs as a soloist or as part of the Minstrels, one of the larger performing groups. When he sings by himself, he likes to perform songs that were popular in the 40s, 50s and 60s. “There’s a lot of sing along opportunities there,” he said.

He joined Project Joy in 2010 after he moved to the area. “I was a performer before I moved to Spokane,” he said. “I was looking for an opportunity to perform.”

He spotted a Project Joy information booth at the Spokane County Interstate Fair and was immediately interested. “It appealed to me,” he said.

Brink said it’s important to him that he’s able to perform for people. “There’s a certain joy to using the unique skills we seem to have,” he said. “There’s a satisfaction, personally, in be able to produce something.”

But Project Joy does not just include singers and musicians. Over the years there have been dancers, magicians, puppeteers, jugglers and storytellers. “One of the misconceptions is that we’re a performance music association and we’re not,” Brink said. “We’re a senior entertainment group.”

Barbara Thomas is also a member of the Minstrels. She said the mixed choir that is the main part of the group recently added a couple new men to its ranks. “We were very excited,” she said. “They add a lot.”

The Minstrels also includes a published poet, who usually reads poetry as part of each performance. “It’s a great group,” she said.

Thomas said she never had much of a singing background before she joined Project Joy. “I only sang in junior high and high school,” she said. “I pulled out of choir to be in the band.”

Despite that fact singing always had a special place in her heart. “I have always just loved music,” she said.

She got involved in Project Joy because of her husband, Wayne Thomas, who joined in 1997. “He was very talented,” she said. “He had one of those male voices you don’t hear very often. It was wonderful.”

At first Thomas would just drop her husband off at rehearsals and then pick him up. Then she started sticking around. She joined officially about 10 years ago. Her husband died in 2011 and Thomas said at first she wasn’t sure if she would continue with the group.

“People were so nice and kind in that group that I decided to stay,” she said. “Everyone is just so friendly and caring. Besides, I like the music. We do songs from way back – 30s, 40s.”

She goes to rehearsals every week and the group typically meets for breakfast afterwards. Thomas also organizes monthly breakfasts during the summer when Project Joy performances are on hiatus. “We’ve really became a little family,” she said.

The group’s mission is to perform for seniors and the volunteers themselves must be over the age of 50. Brink said volunteering with the group helps keep people active and involved, which he calls a “recipe for a better life and better health.”

Last year the volunteers of Project Joy presented 340 performances. “We’re expecting to double in the next three years,” Brink said.

The group’s funding, however, has not kept pace. Project Joy is still supported in part by the Spokane Parks and Recreation Department, as it has been from the beginning, Brink said. “They fund probably half the costs of Project Joy through a yearly grant,” he said.

The group also requests a small donation for each performance. “It’s absolutely not required,” he said.

The group has been dipping into its reserves lately to keep everything running, Brink said. They’re looking into new funding sources, including finding sponsors.

Anyone interested in joining Project Joy can call (509) 535-0584 or send an email to music@projectjoy. org.