For 17 years, the Jazz Foundation of America has been there for elder jazz and blues musicians in crisis. Since that time we have been quietly paying rents, making sure there was food on the table, keeping the heat and the phone on, and whatever else was needed, for elder jazz and blues musicians. In 1993, our partnership with our Angels at Englewood Hospital, getting FREE medical care and operations to hundreds of uninsured musicians through a pro bono network of Physicians and specialists. Before Katrina we averaged 500 Emergency cases a year of our elder clients, since Katrina, we had 2553 emergency cases in the 16 months that followed. Since Katrina, the Jazz Foundation has been getting help to New Orleans musicians directly by paying a first month's rent for new homes, getting nearly $250,000 worth of donated instruments to musicians, giving pro bono: counseling, advocacy, legal counseling, and creating a long term employment program that has been putting 600 displaced musicians back to work performing free concerts in schools and nursing homes, in 8 States. Thanks to the generosity of our beloved Agnes Varis, who has made the first significant employment program possible to keep these great artists and this music, alive. As always, "One musician at a time ..." --Wendy Oxenhorn "When I had congestive heart failure and couldn't work, the Jazz Foundation paid my mortgage for several months and saved my home! Thank God for those people." --Freddie Hubbard "I was going blind and couldn't see to shop or cook, I was living on two cans of SlimFast a day for over a year and a half...The Jazz Foundation saved my life." --Cecil Payne "The Jazz Foundation has been a lifesaver to so many musicians from New Orleans, housing them and giving them the opportunity to work and earn money with dignity. They’ve done more to help the New Orleans musicians than any other group that I know of." --Dr. Michael White (famous New Orleans bandleader/historian) "The Jazz Foundation is doing a fantastic job in taking care of the very people who gave the entire world this incredible music. I cannot even imagine the world without jazz and blues and I cannot imagine turning our backs on the very people who gave their lives,their life experiences and the music to us all these years, especially now when they need us most." --Quincy Jones