A ceremonial check for $600,000 changed hands in Miami Beach on October 8. Florida Sen. Alexis Calatayud presented it to Young Musicians Unite at Taste of YMU: Strings & Spirits, a fundraiser built around live student music, food and cocktails. The nonprofit, known as YMU, says the money arrives as it enters its largest year of growth.
YMU started small. Musician and educator Sammy Gonzalez Zeira founded the program in 2013 with eight students at Young Men’s Prep, as Miami New Times reported. It now places instructors, instruments and curriculum inside Title I schools across Miami-Dade County, according to the organization, with offerings that include drumline, jazz band, rock ensembles and music production. Taste of YMU is one of its recurring fundraisers. The 2025 edition raised $65,000, the group reported at the time.
Young Musicians Unite lets its student players carry the evening
According to the organization, the October 8 celebration paired music with a curated culinary experience and cocktails. Local civic and philanthropic leaders attended. Student musicians from YMU performed live. The format puts the young people the money is meant for on the stage, and YMU framed the night as a showcase for the impact of free music education. Organizers did not release attendance figures or a fundraising total for the evening.
The check was the news peg. Calatayud, a Republican who has held Florida Senate District 38 in southern Miami-Dade since 2022, presented the ceremonial amount on behalf of the state.
Calatayud’s $600,000 check meets a YMU plan to add about 56 schools
YMU says it now reaches more than 21,000 students each week across 131 Miami-Dade schools, and it plans to expand into approximately 56 more. Those figures are the organization’s own, and they have moved quickly. In a funding request filed with the Florida Senate in October 2025, YMU described a program serving more than 19,500 students across 88 schools.
That filing gives the $600,000 figure a paper trail. The amount matches a request that Calatayud sponsored for the 2026-27 fiscal year, published on the Florida Senate’s website. It asks for operating money routed through the Department of Education, with the full amount earmarked for salaries and benefits for teaching artists. The request says the funds would put music teachers in 11 schools and reach 2,242 students, which it describes as one full feeder pattern running from kindergarten through 12th grade. It also says results would be tracked through district data on attendance and grades, plus student surveys.
The same document puts the state’s share at about 12 percent of a $5.2 million project cost.
The numbers frame what comes next. The state money covers 11 schools. YMU’s stated growth plan covers dozens more. The filing lists $4.6 million in other funding for the project year, and the group will have to keep finding that money as its school count climbs.
