Since its beginning in 2005, the mission of Blue Star Connection has been to help medically fragile children and teens. The organization was born when John Catt of the Grand County Blues Society asked a 17-year-old with two inoperable brain tumors if he played music. “I asked Colin if he’d play an electric guitar if he had one, and he said yeah. I asked him what color he’d want, and his mom said, ‘It has to be blue like his eyes.’ ” Two weeks later, Catt was sitting in a Radio Shack when a guy came in with a blue Ibanez electric guitar to donate to Blues in the Schools. Catt delivered it to Colin, and an idea took hold. Since then, Blue Star Connection has placed musical instruments in the hands of hundreds of children with life-challenging conditions, as well as with the music therapy departments of more than 25 children’s hospitals across the country. In the past five years, instruments have been donated to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago, and the new Mott Children’s Hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
