Chester Children's Chorus a Model for Change in Community

Everyday Inspirations is a series that features people in Patch communities who inspire others through their work, or people who have faced extraordinary situations and grown from them. They have been featured by other people in the community that have been inspired by the nominees.

Name: John Alston
Town: Parkside, PA
Nominated by: Kirsten Halker-Kratz

Why is this person an "Everyday Inspiration?" 
Dr. Alston is the founder and artistic director of the Chester Children's Chorus and the founder of the The Chester Fund for Education and the Arts (The Chester Fund).

The 135-member Chester Children's Chorus (founded in 1994 and celebrating its 20th anniversary) is comprised of talented children, ages 8-18 from throughout the Chester Upland School District. They sing gospel written expressly for them by Dr. Alston, as well as classical and pop music. A separate in-school program brings music instruction to 300 elementary schoolchildren in Chester. 

The Chester Fund raises financial support for a charter school, the Chester Charter School for the Arts. CCSA, with an arts-enhanced, academically rigorous curriculum, is in its second year of operation, serving over 300 children in grades K-7.

How does this person work to make others' lives better?

The programs continue to be models of what you can do to start change in a community. They showcase the excellence in Chester when so much of the news reports focus on the crime and disarray of a broken community. 

As one new concert attendee wrote, "When you sing together, each and every one of you is a shining example of the good in our often troubled world!" Dr. Alston has worked tirelessly to ensure that Chester's children will have the chance to make the world a better place.