Southern New Hampshire Ukulele Group and Ukulele Kids Club Brighten Lives of Children in Hospitals

BY JIM D’VILLE | FROM THE SPRING 2026 ISSUE OF UKULELE MAGAZINE

Every Monday, seven-year-old, cute-as-a-button Charlotte Bishop would report to Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri. In 2019 she was diagnosed with aplastic anemia, a disease in which one’s bone marrow does not produce sufficient red blood cells, for which treatment is difficult and time-consuming. But the gift of one ukulele would change the life of this precious little girl.

The story begins in 2013, when Corey Bergman, a lifelong musician, began volunteering at local hospitals in Miami, Florida, to cope with the loss of his son, Jared. “I could plainly see that the act of listening to and playing music, and holding an instrument, has a strong positive effect on a child,” says Bergman. “All the anxiety and fear of the hospital fades away.” 

A year later, Bergman and his wife, Edda, founded Ukulele Kids Club. Its mission is to support medically fragile children by gifting them a ukulele during their hospital stay that they can also bring home. By partnering with affiliate music therapy programs, Ukulele Kids Club has grown into a global effort that has provided nearly 17,000 instruments to hospitalized children.

The bulk of support for UKC comes from direct public donations, says UKC chairperson Marlén Rodriquez-Wolfe, and ukulele clubs are extremely important to its mission. One club in particular, the Southern New Hampshire Ukulele Group (whose members are affectionately known as SNHUGies), has raised $127,000 for UKC. The group’s extraordinary efforts were recognized in 2025 when SNHUG won the Volunteer Champion Award at the Spirit of New Hampshire awards ceremony in October.

“Although the award was an honor, our focus is to give back to the community in meaningful ways, and the UKC fits the bill perfectly,” says SNHUG organizer June Pinkham. “At every performance, we talk about the Ukulele Kids Club and the amazing work they do, and why we do what we do.” Pinkham joined the UKC board of directors in January as board secretary, and UKC recently started its Community Partner Program to support ukulele groups that want to help fundraise. Community partners will receive marketing support for major events, messaging guidance, and opportunities to connect with local music therapy programs.

“The mission of SNHUG from the very beginning was to do something good for our community,” says Pinkham. “The UKC came into existence almost at the same time as the group, so it was serendipitous that I found them through a Google search.” For the past 10 years, the group has hosted SNHUG Fest in late summer in Henry Law Park in Dover, New Hampshire. The festival is an all-day ukulele picnic featuring performances by ukulele clubs from throughout New England. In 2025, the SNHUG Fest raised over $7,000 for the Ukulele Kids Club. 

The 10,000th Uke

But simply gifting ukuleles to children is only half the story. It’s the compassionate music therapists who really make the magic happen. One such person is UKC executive director Kelli McKee, who, in 2016, helped create the pediatric music therapy program at Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital. “A lot of my favorite moments over the years as a pediatric music therapist are related to surprising my patients with a ukulele and teaching them how to use the instrument as a coping outlet,” she says.

McKee specialized in the longer-term patient units, where children would be in the hospital for weeks or months at a time. “I could see the difference in how they were able to cope by having a new creative outlet,” she says. But it was the ongoing effect the ukulele had on these children that most surprised her. “A lot of the kids would bring the ukuleles back with them to clinic appointments or admissions and show me the songs they were working on or had written, or tell me about the lessons they were taking. It was just incredible!”

So how did that one little ukulele change Charlotte Bishop’s life? McKee, who was also Bishop’s music therapist, explains how learning to play the ukulele transformed her. “Over the years, Charlotte went from this little kid who was so nervous and scared, and in a lot of pain, to a child with confidence who had turned into a ukulele player.” For this reason, UKC staff chose Bishop as the recipient of the club’s 10,000th uke in 2022. “Learning to play the ukulele changed Charlotte’s entire hospital experience,” says McKee. “It gave her some-
thing to look forward to every day, and she blossomed.”

UKC and hospital staff surprised her with the ukulele in a special ceremony, but that’s not the end of the story. A film crew documented the event and created a short film about Bishop’s ukulele journey titled The 10,000th Ukulele, which won a Mid-America Emmy Award in the Health/Medical Short category.

“We all went to the awards show, and when they showed a clip from our video, everyone began cheering, and we actually won,” says McKee. “We were sitting in the back of the hall, and Charlotte ran through the ballroom in her little ball gown. The producers scooped her up and took her onstage to accept the award. One of the producers of the video then presented Charlotte with one of their statuettes.”

Now that’s a storybook ending.