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Students at the Maria L. Baldwin Elementary School gathered at their monthly assembly on Friday to celebrate a $50,000 grant awarded to Cambridge Public Schools to install new sound systems in five district schools.

The funding was allocated to CPS’ Visual and Performing Arts Department to install high-quality, user-friendly, portable sound systems at the five elementary schools — Baldwin, Cambridgeport, Graham and Parks, Peabody, and Fletcher Maynard Academy.

The grant was sponsored by Massachusetts State Senator Sal N. DiDomenico through a partnership with School Committee member David J. Weinstein. Local leaders hope it will support student performances and school-wide events while increasing hearing accessibility.

Weinstein, who worked directly with DiDomenico to secure the grant in the spring, said that he was motivated by a belief that the arts allow families to “really engage directly with our schools and come together as a community.”

“We’re a place that really values arts, and we put a lot of resources into it, and it sometimes gets forgotten while we focus on other really important parts of what we’re doing in schools,” Weinstein said. “I really try to lift that up as part of what we’re doing.”

At Baldwin’s assembly on Friday, held in the school’s combined gymnasium and auditorium and meant to showcase the new equipment, students performed songs, recited poems, and read positive affirmations about belonging and well-being.

Three fifth-grade leaders, standing tall behind a makeshift music stand podium, opened the assembly by taking roll by grade level. Students in each successive year, from pre-kindergarten to fifth grade, called back the greetings with mounting enthusiasm, until the school’s affectionately named “gymnatorium” rang with resounding cheers of “my voice matters.”

In an address to the students, CPS superintendent David G. Murphy expressed gratitude for Weinstein and DiDomenico for their work towards the grant.

“Without them, you would not be able to hear my voice right now, because we wouldn’t have these wonderful new microphones,” he added.

CPS Visual and Performing Arts Department director Andrea Zuniga praised Weinstein for spearheading the grant, saying the new equipment was a “huge” development for school performances.

“I can’t say the amount of events that we have and the impact that this has, not only for our communities and for making amplified voices sound beautiful,” but also to make events accessible to attendees with auditory disabilities, Zuniga said.

“We know that we need good, appropriate audio and visuals in order to support all of our communities, to access what kids are doing,” she added.

Zuniga said the grant would help ensure that the sound systems at Baldwin and the other four recipient schools matched the quality of the sound systems in newer schools in the district.

DiDomenico, a graduate of CPS schools, said that his experience growing up in Cambridge made investing in education one of his priorities at the Statehouse.

“You can have great curriculum, you can have great teachers — you don’t have great buildings, you don’t have great technology and equipment, all the money you’re spending on curriculum and all the things we’re trying to do for our students is for naught,” he added.

Will Houchin, a member of the leadership team for the VPA Department, helped design the sound system to be “versatile” across different spaces and “really let the students shine.”

“We have amazing music teachers who put on amazing performances, and the kids do such great work, and it’s important that it’s heard,” Houchin said.

“We wanted to do something that could really just showcase our students and put their best foot forward and make sure we’re all hearing that,” he added.

—Staff writer Ayaan Ahmad can be reached at ayaan.ahmad@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @AyaanAhmad2024.