My passion for the harp began as a result of a great sadness in my life, the death of my mother due to ovarian cancer. The difficult experience of going through this with her gave me much insight about terminal illness; the most important being how important sound is to the dying. I discovered the wonderful services that hospice can offer, and how people are treated with dignity and respect.

Following my mother's death, I felt the strong desire to find out what else could be done for those who are suffering and for whom medicine could not help. It occurred to me that harp music played at the bedside might be the answer. I became a hospice volunteer and began to investigate the pioneering field of therapeutic harp by studying the instrument with professionals and becoming certified with the International Harp Therapy Program.

I founded Compassionate Harps™ at the Inland Hospice Association in Claremont, California in 1996. We later merged with Pilgrim Place and became a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Program, with affiliates such as the City of Hope National Medical Center and Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center. 

Through HHI and Compassionate Harps, we employ  therapeutic harpists who have become trained through our certification program. Compassionate Harps™ continues to provide soothing harp music at the bedside for ill people throughout the Inland Empire and surrounding cities of Southern California.

My desire is to see the therapeutic harp movement expanded throughout the country so that harp music can be offered to patients as an adjunct to more conventional therapies.

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