Sasha Perskie, a rising senior at Red Bank Regional, felt an immediate connection with the kids at Tongabezi Trust School in Simonga, Zambia, bonding through the universal language of music. Photo courtesy Sasha Perskie 
Since visiting the school in 2024, Perskie has remained actively involved with the music program. She returned this summer as a guest instructor. Photo courtesy Sasha Perskie 
Perskie, who also teaches at Lakewood Music Academy, worked with Zambian children on songwriting and helped prepare a special concert to showcase the students’ musical abilities. Photo courtesy Sasha Perskie
By Eileen Moon
LITTLE SILVER – If one of the teachers at Red Bank Regional High School asks senior Sasha Perskie what she did on her summer vacation, the teen won’t need much time to pick out the highlights.
As her junior year came to an end, Perskie, 17, was packing up for a two-week visit to Zambia, where she spent her time “playing” it forward – using her talents in piano, guitar and voice to share the gift of music with pupils at the Tongabezi Trust School in Simonga, a rural village on the outskirts of Livingstone, Zambia.
Perskie was introduced to the school, a charity-funded nonprofit that enrolls some 300 students from struggling families, during a family vacation to see Victoria Falls in 2024.
“We do travel a lot,” Perskie said of her family. “Every spring break we try and do a really cool vacation.”
During the family’s 2024 trip, Perskie, her parents, Pamela and Joseph, and her younger sister, Laney, decided to take a side trip on their exotic adventure and tour the village of Simonga, which included a stop at the school. The children greeted their visitors from abroad with a performance of Zambia’s national anthem.
Children who attend Tongabezi school lack many of the resources that kids in the Two River area take for granted. Many come from homes with no electricity or running water, notes Tongabezi fundraising manager Vicki Kabalika.
Despite the hardships of their daily lives, what the kids have in abundance is creativity, intelligence and a special love for music. Those are qualities that Perskie, too, has in abundance; she felt an immediate connection with the kids at Tongabezi, bonding through the universal language of music.
Proficient on piano and guitar, Perskie is also a singer and songwriter who has been studying music since she was a small child. For the past year, she has worked as a part-time music instructor at Lakehouse Music Academy in Asbury Park.
But meeting the kids at Tongabezi School provided Perskie with special inspiration, one that forged a connection that continued long after the Perskies returned to their home in Little Silver.
During that first visit last year, Perskie asked if she could return to the school as a guest instructor in 2025. Her offer was warmly accepted.
“Over the past year, Sasha has remained actively involved, working closely with our music program remotely, sharing songs and her music expertise with our team and children,” said Kabalika. “Then in June, she returned to spend two wonderful weeks with us, during which she worked with children on songwriting and taught them guitar and piano. She also helped prepare a special concert that showcased the children’s musical growth and creativity.”
Perskie guided the children in writing their own songs while also teaching the kids some of her own favorites, like Ed Sheeran’s “Perfect” and Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me.”
“It was so amazing to work with these kids,” Perskie said. “As much as I was excited, I wasn’t prepared for how amazing it would be.”
During her recent visit, Perskie collaborated with students at Tongabezi to write a song that they all sang together as the program concluded. “We all played it together,” she said. “It was super-cool that we did it. I really enjoyed it.”
She came home from her visits to Zambia with renewed inspiration for a program she first envisioned in 2022 when she entered Red Bank Regional as a Visual and Performing Arts major.
To be accepted into the program, students are required to demonstrate their abilities by passing an audition.
Perskie realized then how difficult it must be for a student who lacked the opportunities she has had to qualify for placement in the Visual and Performing Arts program.
She wanted to find a way to provide music education and musical instruments to students whose families might not have the resources to afford the cost of special instruction.
“I wanted to give everyone an opportunity,” Perskie said.
With that goal in mind, Perskie established Play it Forward, a grassroots nonprofit whose mission is to provide music instruction to kids who might not otherwise have the opportunity to play an instrument, write a song or learn to sing.
Through Play it Forward, Perskie thought, today’s music majors at RBR could reach out to a younger generation, providing them with the education and encouragement they need to develop their talents and compete successfully for a place in the Visual and Performing Arts Academy at RBR.
“I talked to all the music teachers,” Perskie said. “I got them to help me make a program targeting middle schoolers.”
She also reached out to Jennifer Chauhan, co-founder and executive director at Project Write Now, a Red Bank-based nonprofit that offers writing instruction to children and adults, to ask for her help in finding an instructional home for Play it Forward.
Sasha had attended Project Write Now herself, studying songwriting with their resident music instructor, Mimi Cross.
“We were so excited when Sasha came to us with this initiative,” Chauhan said.
“It aligned with our philosophy of artistic expression, and we were happy to fold it into our program at Red Bank Middle School.”
With the assistance of these partners, Perskie was able to launch the Play It Forward initiative at Red Bank Women’s Club, just a short walk from the middle school.
Play it Forward now offers 12 weeks of music instruction to fourth and fifth graders at Red Bank Middle School, who sign up on a first-come, first-served basis. Classes are limited to 8-10 students per session to allow for individual instruction. And because Play it Forward provides the kids with instruments, they don’t have the burden of having to purchase them.
Those who miss out on the first session because classes fill up are placed on a wait list for the next session.
Classes are taught by Perskie and some of her fellow students in the school of Visual and Performing Arts at RBR, who receive volunteer credits for their work by special arrangement with the high school.
Play It Forward also expanded its outreach to underwrite music education for students in the Asbury Park area.
With September on the horizon, Perskie is preparing for another year of sharing the gifts of music with students both here and in Zambia.
The fall session will begin in October, with the addition of singing lessons and songwriting, as well as guitar and piano. “I’m going to be asking my friends at the vocal academy at RBR to be peer teachers,” Perskie said.
She’s particularly looking forward to inspiring her young students to write their own music. “I’m so passionate about songwriting. I want everyone to experience that,” she said.
“The kids seem to really love it,” said Chauhan. “Sasha is very enthusiastic and the fact that it’s a teen who is guiding them is very inspiring for them to see. I just love it when a teen really recognizes that they do have a voice.”
And as the young students find their way with the language of music, they, too, can find their voices, Chauhan notes.
“Having someone believe in them as Sasha does, that’s everything.”
Play it Forward welcomes monetary donations as well as donations of musical instruments. Learn more about Play it Forward at playitforwardmusic.org.
The article originally appeared in the August 14 – 20, 2025 print edition of The Two River Times.
