Tuesday, June 17, 2025
Voices of Elmont, a community-based youth choir spearheaded by Elmont Bus Attendant Aisha Stevenson, celebrated its one-year anniversary on April 19 at Averill Park in Franklin Square.
Stevenson, the choir’s founder, has been leading her students in song aboard what she calls the “party bus” since 2018. She sparked the rising youth movement last spring, growing membership from nine kids to over 50 in the past year.
As a bus attendant, Stevenson said she interacts with kids in the Elmont school district almost daily. She began directing students to sing songs on their way to and from school shortly after she began working for the school’s contracted transportation company, We Transport, Inc.
While she only has the kids under her supervision for a short, 15-minute bus ride to and from the school buildings, she said she uses the time to make it as lively and joyful as possible.
“I try to make the bus a fun, happy time, and that’s why I call it the party bus,” Stevenson said, laughing.
Stevenson taught her students to sing uplifting songs such as “Lean on Me” and “This Little Light of Mine,” occasionally allowing the kids to decide on a song they want to sing for the bus ride. Kids and parents, Stevenson said, have responded positively to her leadership, and she maintains close relationships with those in the district.
“I have a good rapport with the parents,” Stevenson said. “They call me for everything, because they know their kids are in good hands.”
Gina Collum, Voice of Elmont’s choir director and Stevenson’s sister, said she is close with Stevenson and supported her idea for the choir when she began floating it last year.
Collum, also a bus attendant for the Elmont school district, said she cares deeply about keeping kids off the streets so they can do something positive in the community.
“Kids go through a lot of things,” Collum said. “So, we bring them here. They’re all welcome.”
Getting kids together to sing, Stevenson explained, isn’t just something that’s fun. It helps them deal with real life issues like bullying, a behavior Stevenson does not tolerate on her bus.
When two kids aren’t getting along, Stevenson said, she sits them down and directs them to sing something together. Once the kids start singing, she said, they often forget about the cause of their fight.
More than anything, Stevenson said, providing a space for children to sing together offers them a safe place to hang out and make friends.
The choir rehearses twice monthly inside the Averill Boulevard Park building center, where they practice inspirational and gospel songs to perform at community events and churches, such as children’s parties and communions.
Abigail Occelin, a parent of two children in the youth choir, Allyson and Arielle Occelin, said she’s known Stevenson for years now. When Stevenson told her about her idea for the choir last year, Occelin was quick to sign her kids up.
Her reasoning, she said, is because she felt Voices of Elmont would help her children meet other kids and build lasting friendships. So far, Occelin said, she’s been right.
“It instills positive affirmations and builds confidence,” Occelin said. “They’re joining something that is inspiring, uplifting, and building community.”
Two students from Dutch Broadway Elementary School—Tyler Marcelin, 11, and Athena Montenez-Griffin, 11—have been members of the choir since it began. Both said the choir is a lot of fun, and their favorite part is singing with friends.
“I feel excited when I come here because it makes my mood very happy,” Tyler said.
“It’s like all the pressure is off me,” Athena added.
Shonda Ramirez, another sister of Stevenson, said she and her sisters have been singing together since they were children. She recounted that their mother, Geraldine Kelly, loved singing, and has since served as an inspiration for the youth choir’s founding.
As the eldest sister, Ramirez said, she would learn songs in her school choir and teach them to her sisters when she came home. It pushed her out of her comfort zone—an important life lesson she says children should learn.
“It just opened up this feeling for me to be able to express myself and be with other people,” she said of her own youth choir.
By learning to stand next to others, whether in a choir or a church, Ramirez said facing struggles together means no one is alone. “It’s an invisible bond that holds you together,” Ramirez said.
Music has been a huge part of Ramirez’s life, she explained, and the power of bringing communities togethereven through difficult times is a source of interpersonal connection that can be healing.
Ramirez has been a nurse with Northwell Health since 1991, and she currently works at the Long Island Jewish Forest Hills Hospital in Queens.
After the pandemic separated friends and families in 2020, the health company formed the Northwell Health Nurse Choir. At the time, almost all public spaces were still under lockdown. Nurses would practice over Zoom meetings, sometimes recording parts of their songs completely separate from one another.
“All of us were together, and none of us even knew each other,” Ramirez said.
This is precisely what Stevenson intends to provide children when she gets them to sing together.
Stevenson said anyone interested in joining the choir, or hiring the choir for an event, can reach out to her at (917) 561-6796, or email GodsSongbird76@aol.com.
