Andrew Rinaldi Memorial Fund

About the Andrew Rinaldi Memorial Fund

Since its inception in 2016, the Andrew Rinaldi Memorial Fund has developed from a fund with a broad mandate to promote the well-being of young Americans, to an organization which focuses as far as possible on developing and funding activities for young adults; the 16 to 24 year-old population in particular, as that seems to be an under-served group.

All this came about initially because we and our friends and family wanted to create a memorial to Andrew, who died at 24 in 2016. It has reached further than we imagined might be possible and we are now looking for ways to assess the impact that the fund has had thus far.

The aim of the fund continues to be to help teens and young adults who find themselves at a loss, for whatever reason; it might be because organized activities are aimed at younger people and so they are bored, or because they find themselves in trouble of some kind. Whatever the reason, we want to help, and we are doing what we can.

So far we’ve found a niche –  funding recording studios, purpose built for young people to enjoy!

When Andrew died in 2016, we were looking to fund projects in the neighborhood which might benefit teens and young adults. Greenwich, CT, is lucky enough to have the country’s longest-running privately-funded teen center, known as the Teen Center at Arch Street. We reached out to them to see whether they had any specific need for help.

As chance would have it, it turned out that they had been thinking about clearing out their storage rooms and turning them into a recording studio of some kind. And it just made so much sense to us; here was a project that would appeal to almost everyone, and that Andrew would have loved. He was into music, electronics, IT – it was such a perfect fit, and he would have wanted to use it himself!

Thus, the first Andrew’s Studio was created and opened officially in April, 2017.

It serves about 35-50 people a week and is always free for all to use. Hundreds have used it since its opening; and projects range from one-off recording sessions to first-time users getting a taste for music or podcast creation, to students who come on a weekly basis.

With the early success of the first studio, we looked around for a second project.

Close to Greenwich is Stamford, CT, and DomusKids runs programs there for kids and young adults. These are designed to further their education, job prospects and just to have fun! They heard about Andrew’s Studio at Arch Street and contacted us to apply for their own grant to convert a backstage room into a studio and in January 2019 the second Andrew’s Studio opened. During the school year, this is now already used by 35 students a week and is accessible to the young people in Domus’s young adults program. Like Arch Street, all programs are free.

We then turned our attention to Port Chester, NY.

The Carver Center there runs a community center with programs for all ages, after school programs for kids and career/education-development programs for young adults. They already had a recording studio – but it was very outdated. We funded refurbishing and equipping the studio, and they opened the third Andrew’s Studio in late 2019! They have focused on group workshops in the studio from Monday to Wednesday each week, and Thursday and Friday are for individual use – all free of charge.

Then along came the Boys and Girls Club of Stamford.

They recently built a new teen center and incorporated a music studio into the design – trusting that someone would equip it when it was built. After making sure that it would be available for young adults as well as high schoolers, we gave them a grant and they had a soft opening in 2020. The official opening is happened early 2022.

Now we are proud to announce that our fifth studio, at the Bergen Family Center in Englewood, NJ, also opened in Spring 2022.

Very much a community center, BFC serves people of all ages in the community. Despite the pandemic, they managed to use our funds to construct a studio in the middle of their teen center, and they will begin operating the studio in April or May, 2022.

In addition to the music studios, we have given some general grants to organizations who serve this young adult population.

They can usually get funds for food and shelter but who don’t have the funding for activities such as gym memberships, outings to baseball games, shows, museums and movie theaters.

Our next project – The Racial Harmony Project – involved Andrew’s Studio at Domus, Andrew’s Studio at Arch Street and Christ Church, Greenwich.

The goal of the project was to create an environment where youth and young adults from different communities could gain a better understanding of our similarities and differences and express their emotions around racial issues through the creation of songs, artwork and videos. Over a number of weeks, participants from each of the organizations have worked alone or in pairs and created wonderful songs, artwork and videos (which can be found by clicking here). At the same time, we funded a documentary of the whole project, and on December 11, 2021 we aired a preview of the documentary, which is now being shown in film festivals and which has won several awards.

Following on from the Racial Harmony project, we have set up a new project, called Living in Harmony.

Designed to have young adults learn and think about bias, listening skills and empathy, the eight week project has involved twenty youth from Stamford, Greenwich and Port Chester, of different backgrounds. In addition to group meetings, they are in the process of creating musical pieces inspired by the project. More to come when we publish the pieces in what we expect to be a moving symphony.

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About Andrew

Andrew was a wonderful person; strong-willed, energetic, caring and could always put a smile on your face. He always saw the good in people and always made sure that everyone felt included.

Andrew’s death was sudden and heartbreaking to everyone whose lives he touched. People started reaching out and wanted to send money to a charity of our choice to commemorate Andrew’s life.

There wasn’t an obvious charity for us to recommend and therefore we set up the Andrew Rinaldi Memorial Fund, a public charity, whose purpose is to promote the well-being of young Americans.

We didn’t know exactly what we would use it for, but we decided that we would focus on late teens and young adults who find themselves at a loss, for whatever reason; it might be because organized activities are aimed at younger people and so they are bored, or because they find themselves in trouble of some kind.

Whatever the reason, we want to help, and we are doing what we can.