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Cookler, was working for Apple by day, and designing websites and taking classes for a master's of business administration degree by night when Elie Maroun and Jordan Stern asked him to design a webpage.
During the meeting, Cookler was shown the blueprints for a new non-profit called Music Beats Hearts. The company would place new fully loaded iPods in the hands of sick children and adults in hospitals.
The concept: hospital stays can be dreadful, but music can relieve that. Cookler turned down a commissioned offer to build the website - and instead asked to be part of the team. In exchange for taking on the webpage, Cookler convinced the two men to let him become a partner in Music Beats Hearts.
“I just knew this was something special,” said Cookler, a Jericho, Long Island native.
“We are getting donations from all over the country. So many times the donations come in with amazing notes about how music saved them during their darkest times. One woman from Ontario wrote, ‘I am donating because music saves my life every day. It continues to give me strength, and everyone deserves to feel the beat of positivity and healing!’ Another donor from California wrote, ‘I’m donating because my 17-year-old son suffered a stroke last summer and was in the hospital for nine long days of tests, surgery and recovery. He had his earbuds in a majority of that time, and I know that made a difference.'”
Many of the iPods go out to children, but people of any age can be recipients. So far, Music Beats Hearts has donated iPods at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Jersey and St. Mary’s Hospital for Children in Queens.
While the organization is still new, Cookler said they are looking to expand and bring iPods to more hospitals all across the United States by years end.
To learn more visit www.MusicBeatsHearts.org.
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