Marsha Green

My whole career has been dedicated to working in the community to enhance the lives of community members, particularly women and children. I worked as a patient advocate and client advocate at the University of Maryland, where I focused on supporting women and children during the HIV pandemic in the 1990s, working in the pediatric department with pregnant women. Later, I served as a project coordinator for a heart disease program at another Baltimore hospital. After retiring in 2021, I founded Next Up Music during COVID, fulfilling a dream my son and I had shared for years. This nonprofit removes financial barriers to instrument ownership for talented students in Baltimore City Schools. We provide brand new instruments to middle and high school students, follow them throughout their educational journey, and partner with Peabody Institute to offer master classes. I'm also an active member of Baltimore Advocates for Arts Education, where we advocate for the arts in the school system by attending school board meetings and fighting to keep theater, music, and visual arts programs funded. As a mother of four sons who I raised in West Baltimore, I saw how music transformed their lives - two became professional musicians, one a music engineer, and one a chef at Four Seasons. All four attended college, and two earned master's degrees. My mission now is to give back to the next generation and show that the arts have a profound impact on children's brains and futures.