2025 Annual Report: WHERE CHILDREN MEET SENIOR THROUGH MUSIC

Thank you for being part of this wonderful adventure and for helping make 2025 such a fantastic and meaningful year!

Table of contents:

Letter from the Executive Director
Our mission
Activities in 2025
Financial report 2025
Our Board & Partners
Strategic plans for 2026

A letter from our Founder & Executive Director

Small groups of musicians travel from room to room and perform directly at resident bedsides. These performances are intimate and simple, but their emotional impact can be extraordinary. In those rooms, music becomes much more than entertainment. It becomes presence, attention, memory and human connection.

We also considerably strengthened our partnerships with schools and music communities in 2025. These collaborations allowed us not only to welcome many new musicians but also to organize customized weekday concerts with groups of students, particularly during community service days and service weeks. This has been an important step in expanding our programming beyond weekends and reaching senior centers that operate primarily during the week.

We organized two special concerts at the National Opera Center: one supporting the nonprofit Life Project 4 Youth (LP4Y) and another dedicated to New York's French-speaking senior community, with the support of the French Consulate. Both demonstrated how powerful music can be in creating community across generations, languages and backgrounds.

We also took our first important steps toward building a sustainable future for The Happiness Factory. We launched our fundraising efforts, including a joyful outdoor fundraising concert in Central Park, while beginning to reach out to individual donors, foundations and other potential supporters.

And our work received wonderful recognition. In April, French Morning shared the story of our family and our growing community. Later in the year, our work received broader media attention, including a CNN interview, and I was deeply honored to be featured and named Spectrum News NY1's “New Yorker of the Week.”

2025 was a remarkable year for The Happiness Factory.

We organized 50 concerts across New York City, compared with 32 in 2024, bringing together more than 250 young volunteer musicians and reaching a few thousands of older adults in 28 different nursing homes, assisted living residences, rehabilitation facilities and senior centers.

But numbers tell only a small part of our story.

What matters most to me are the moments behind those numbers:

A resident who begins singing a song she remembers. A hand that starts tapping on the arm of a wheelchair. A face that suddenly lights up when a child enters the room carrying a violin. A senior who asks us when we will come back. A young musician who arrives nervous about performing and leaves understanding that the most important part of playing music is not playing every note perfectly, it is what those notes can make another person feel.

This is what The Happiness Factory is about.

In 2025, we continued to return regularly to the same senior communities, usually every three or four months. This is essential to our mission. We do not want our concerts to be isolated events. By returning, we get to know residents, they get to know our musicians, and intergenerational relationships begin to develop. We can learn which songs they love, recognize familiar faces and gradually become part of their community.

At the same time, we continued reaching new facilities and new populations across New York.

One of the most meaningful developments of 2025 was the launch of our Bedside Program, created for residents who cannot leave their rooms or floors, particularly residents in memory care, living with dementia, facing serious health conditions or experiencing very limited mobility.

Instead of asking residents to come to the music, we bring the music to them.

But above all these accomplishments, there is something even more precious to me.

I have watched the relationship our young musicians have with music begin to change.

Music is no longer only an academic subject practiced alone in a bedroom, a piece to perfect for a teacher, an exam, an audition or a recital. Through The Happiness Factory, music becomes something else.

It becomes a language of the heart.

Our young musicians discover that the piece they have practiced for weeks can bring back someone's memory. That a familiar melody can make someone who has been silent begin to sing. That their presence can make a resident feel seen and remembered. That, for a few minutes, they have the power to change somebody else's day.

And in doing so, they are changed too.

We witnessed so many of these magical moments in 2025.

To every young musician who shared their talent, to every parent who drove instruments across the city, carried keyboards and speakers, took photographs, encouraged the children and supported us; to every school, teacher and partner who believed in our mission; to every senior community that opened its doors to us; to our Board and volunteers; and to every donor who helped us continue offering our programs free of charge:

Thank you.

Thank you for helping us bring music, life and human connection to those who need it most.

Thank you for placing another brick in The Happiness Factory.

Pascale Blachez
Founder & Executive Director

Our mission

The Happiness Factory is a New York City-based 501(c)3 non-profit dedicated to reducing social isolation and loneliness among older adults through the gift of live music.

We bring young musicians into nursing homes, assisted living residences, rehabilitation facilities, memory care units and senior centers to create joyful, meaningful and recurring intergenerational experiences.

Our mission creates a double impact.

For older adults, our concerts provide live music, emotional stimulation, memories, joy and, most importantly, meaningful human connection.

For young musicians, The Happiness Factory provides a welcoming, non-competitive environment where they can perform, gain confidence and discover that music is not only something to master: it can also be used to connect, comfort and serve others.

Our goal is simple:

To use the universal language of music to bring generations together and remind every person, regardless of age or circumstance, that they matter.

2025 KEY NUMBERS

Our activities in 2025

Main hall concerts

This year, the heart of The Happiness Factory remained our weekly intergenerational concert program.

Throughout 2025, groups of young musicians performed across New York City in nursing homes, assisted living communities, rehabilitation facilities and older adult centers.

Our concerts are intentionally different from traditional recitals.

We curate programs designed specifically for older audiences, combining classical music, jazz, Broadway, folk music and familiar popular songs that residents have known and loved throughout their lives.

A concert include piano, violin, cello, guitar, trumpet, saxophone, drums, double bass, voice and many other instruments.

Young musicians perform solos, duets and ensembles, before frequently coming together for familiar songs that invite the entire room to participate.

The audience is never simply an audience.

Residents sing. They clap. They request songs. They tap their feet and move their hands. Sometimes they stand up and dance. Sometimes they cry.

And very often, the most important moments happen between the pieces when a child speaks with a resident, offers a drawing or card, hears a memory connected to a song, or simply holds someone's hand.

This human interaction is at the center of everything we do.

RETURNING, NOT JUST VISITING

An important principle of The Happiness Factory is continuity.

In 2025, we continued developing a model based on returning to the same communities several times each year, typically every three or four months.

When we return, residents recognize us. Musicians recognize residents. We learn their favorite songs. Staff tell us which music produced a particularly meaningful response. Conversations continue from one visit to the next.

A concert becomes more than a performance. It becomes a relationship.

Our goal is therefore to balance two priorities: reaching new senior communities while maintaining recurring relationships with the facilities and residents we already serve.

Launching our Bedside Program

One of our proudest accomplishments of 2025 was the development of our Bedside Program.

During our regular concerts, we became increasingly aware that some of the residents who might benefit most from music were precisely the residents who could not attend.

Some were confined to their rooms. Some were living on memory care floors. Some were recovering from serious illnesses.

We wanted to find a way to reach them. So we changed the model.

Instead of bringing the residents to the concert, we began bringing the concert to the residents.

A smaller group of young musicians travels from room to room with portable instruments and performs directly at each resident's bedside. Sometimes there is barely enough room for a keyboard and a few musicians.

But the intimacy is precisely what makes these visits so powerful.

A brief performance can become an extraordinarily personal exchange between generations.

One resident captured the impact beautifully: “You made my day, my week, my month!”

Another described a bedside visit as: “A purely magical moment. They brought love into my room.”

The Bedside Program has also profoundly affected our musicians. They see, at very close range, the effect their music can have on another human being.

This program will be one of our major priorities for expansion in 2026.

No senior should miss out on the joy of music simply because they cannot leave their room.

May 18. - Upper East Side Rehab & Nursing

June 7. - West Village Rehab and Nursing

Sep 14. - Opera Center for the Golden Age

different locations have been visited in Manhattan and around in the 5 boroughs:

8 Older Adult Centers
7 Assisted Living Residences
13 Rehab & Nursing Centers

Our Impact

A DOUBLE IMPACT

Young musicians have participated to the concerts

The Happiness Factory was created to bring joy to older adults.

But over the years, we have realized that the impact flows equally strongly in the other direction.

Our musicians learn to perform in an environment where perfection is not the goal.

We welcome musicians of different ages, backgrounds and skill levels. What matters is not whether they play the most difficult piece. What matters is their willingness to share.

For a child who may associate music primarily with lessons, practice, competitions, auditions and examinations, this can completely transform the meaning of playing an instrument.

At The Happiness Factory, a musician discovers:

My music matters because of what it can give to someone else.

They gain performance, experience and confidence, but they also develop empathy, generosity, patience and an understanding of older generations.

They learn to observe an audience and connect with it.

They learn that an imperfect performance given with generosity can sometimes mean far more than a technically perfect performance given without connection.

And they experience the extraordinary satisfaction of service.

As one of our youngest musicians, six-year-old Victor, explained:

“I feel very happy to bring music to the residents... I am about to cry out happy tears when I play for them.”

That may be one of the most important measures of our impact.

Building partnerships with schools

2025 marked an important expansion of our relationships with schools, music programs and student communities.

These partnerships have become essential to our model.

Through schools, parent associations, music teachers and student networks, we were able to introduce The Happiness Factory to many new musicians and families.

But the partnerships went further than recruitment.

We increasingly worked with schools to create dedicated intergenerational concerts, including performances during school service days and service weeks.

This created an important new opportunity: weekday programming.

Historically, many of our concerts had taken place on weekends because of student schedules. School partnerships allowed us to bring groups of musicians into senior communities during the week, when many older adult centers are most active.

These experiences also allow schools to offer students a form of community service that is personal, creative and deeply human.

Rather than simply counting volunteer hours, students can see and feel the impact of their service immediately.

As we look toward the future, strengthening these school partnerships will remain one of the foundations of our growth.

Special events in 2025

Bringing together the French speaking senior community

In September, The Happiness Factory organized a special free concert at the National Opera Center for French-speaking seniors living in New York.

Supported by the French Consulate, the event was designed to reach older francophone adults who may not live in nursing homes but who can nevertheless experience social isolation.

Young musicians performed a culturally tailored program including French songs and jazz, followed by a buffet that gave seniors, musicians and families time to meet and talk.

The event demonstrated that our model can extend beyond care facilities and create community for older adults around a shared language, musical heritage and culture.

Music in support of LP4Y

We also organized a special concert at the National Opera Center supporting Life Project 4 Youth (LP4Y).

The event reflected another dimension of our mission: using music not only to connect generations, but also to support organizations working against exclusion and vulnerability.

Taking the Factory outside

Our First Central Park Fundraising Concert

2025 also marked an important milestone in our development as a nonprofit organization: the beginning of our structured fundraising efforts.

Our first Central Park fundraising concert brought musicians, families, friends and members of the community together outdoors to play music, introduce The Happiness Factory to new audiences and raise funds for our programs.

For a young organization whose concerts are always offered free of charge, developing a sustainable fundraising model is essential.

The event was not only about raising money.

It was about making our mission visible. Families discovered our work.

Young musicians experienced another way of using their talent in service of the community.

It was a first step toward building the financial foundation that will allow us to bring music to many more seniors in the years ahead.

A year of recognition

2025 was also a remarkable year for awareness of our work.

The Happiness Factory was featured by French Morning in April, telling the story of a family music project that had grown into a New York community of young volunteers.

Later in the year, our work received national and local media attention, including an interview with CNN.

And in December, our Founder and Executive Director, Pascale Blachez, was honored as Spectrum News NY1's “New Yorker of the Week” for The Happiness Factory's work creating intergenerational harmony throughout New York City.

The recognition was deeply meaningful, not simply because it increased our visibility, but because it validated the extraordinary contribution made by every young musician and family in our community.

Every musician who carry keyboards, amplifiers, microphones and music stands. into a nursing home is part of this story.

Every parent who transports their children, encourages the musicians, takes photographs and videos, is part of this story.

Every senior who sings with us is part of this story.

The recognition belongs to the entire Factory.

2025 Financial review

The Happiness Factory remained a highly volunteer-driven organization in 2025.

With just $7,741 in revenue, we were able to organize 50 free intergenerational concerts across New York City, reaching thousands of seniors and engaging more than 250 young volunteer musicians.

All 2025 revenue came from contributions, gifts and grants.

Our expenses supported the essential costs required to operate and grow our programs, including program-related expenses, professional services and other organizational and operating costs.

The organization had no paid employees or compensated officers in 2025. The Founder, Board members, young musicians, families and volunteers contributed substantial unpaid time and resources to make our programs possible.

As a result, our reported expenses represent only a portion of the true resources required to deliver 50 concerts. They do not capture the considerable value of volunteer leadership, donated time, family-provided equipment and other in-kind contributions.

All Happiness Factory programs were provided free of charge to the senior communities we served.

This exceptionally lean model allowed nearly every dollar raised to directly support our mission while laying the foundation for sustainable growth in 2026.

Our board

Pascale Blachez, President

Marie-Barbe Girard, Secretary

Cheryl D’Hollander, Treasurer

FROM 2025 TO 2026: From proof of concept to scalable impact

If 2024 was the year we built the formal foundation of The Happiness Factory, 2025 was the year we proved the strength of the model:

50 concerts / 250+ musicians / A rapidly expanding network of senior communities / New school partnerships / A new Bedside Program.

And, most importantly, increasing requests from senior facilities asking us to come, or to come back more often.

We have reached an important turning point. Our demand is now greater than the capacity of a model dependent primarily on one founding family and volunteer labor.

For that reason, 2026 will be our pivotal year.

OUR 2026 PRIORITIES

1. DOUBLE OUR IMPACT

Our ambition is to grow from approximately 50 concerts to as many as 100 annual performances, reaching substantially more older adults while creating additional opportunities for young musicians.

2. EXPAND THE BEDSIDE PROGRAM

We will continue bringing small groups of musicians directly to residents who cannot leave their rooms, with particular attention to memory care, dementia, long-term care and highly isolated residents.

3. BUILD AUTONOMOUS CONCERT TEAMS

To move beyond a founder-dependent model, we aim to train additional leaders capable of organizing and leading concerts while preserving The Happiness Factory's musical quality, warmth and values.

4. INVEST IN OUR OWN EQUIPMENT

Until now, much of the equipment used at our concerts has belonged to the founding family.

We need dedicated portable keyboards, speakers, microphones, stands, percussion and other equipment so multiple teams can operate independently and, eventually, simultaneously.

5. INTRODUCE PAID OPERATIONAL SUPPORT

Our growth has created a substantial invisible administrative workload: communicating with hundreds of musicians and families, scheduling facilities, creating programs, coordinating transportation, managing equipment, fundraising and maintaining partnerships.

Introducing modest paid operational roles will allow us to transition from a volunteer-sustained model to a professionally supported, volunteer-driven organization.

6. STRENGTHEN SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS

We will continue building partnerships with schools, universities, music programs and community organizations to expand weekday programming and provide meaningful service opportunities for young musicians.

7. BUILD THE HAPPINESS FACTORY PLAYBOOK

Our longer-term ambition is to document the model we have developed: our repertoire, concert formats, facility relationships, youth engagement practices and Bedside Program, so that one day The Happiness Factory can be replicated in other communities without losing the values and human connection that make it unique.

OUR VISION FOR THE FUTURE

Our dream is simple and ambitious: A Factory for every Home.

We imagine a future where live intergenerational music is not an occasional luxury in senior care, but a regular part of community life.

A future where a resident in a nursing home knows that young musicians will return.

Where a person confined to a room can still experience a live violin, piano or voice only a few feet from their bed.

Where children grow up understanding that their talent has meaning beyond achievement.

Where generations that rarely have the opportunity to meet can learn from one another.

And where music reminds us, again and again, of our shared humanity.

The Happiness Factory began with one family and a handful of instruments. It is becoming a community. And we are only beginning.

THANK YOU FOR BUILDING THE FACTORY WITH US

To our young musicians:

Thank you for every note you shared and every smile you created.

To our families and volunteers:

Thank you for your time, your patience, your generosity and your extraordinary commitment.

To our senior communities and partner facilities:

Thank you for opening your doors and trusting us with your residents.

To our schools, teachers and community partners:

Thank you for helping young people discover the power of service through music.

To our donors and supporters:

Thank you for believing that this work matters and for helping us bring music to those who need it most.

And most importantly, to every senior resident who listened, sang, clapped, danced, cried, shared a memory or simply smiled:

Thank you for reminding us why we keep coming back.

Together, we filled rooms with music in 2025.

Together, we brought light into places where loneliness can feel overwhelming.

Together, we discovered that happiness grows when it is shared.

And together, we will continue building The Happiness Factory!

Our partners