Photo by Jon Anderson
Miss Hoover 2026 Ali Mims and David Bannister, a representative for the Sandlin Foundation for Kids and Kindness, present a ceremonial check for $30,000 to Hoover City Schools to represent $30,000 worth of music kits that are being donated to the school system for special needs classrooms. Pictured with them are Hoover schools Superintendent Kevin Maddox, left, and Brian Cocke, the school district's fine arts specialist, at right.
Special needs students in every school in the Hoover school system are gaining new tools to broaden their exposure to music, thanks to a $30,000 donation from the Sandlin Foundation for Kids and Kindness and Joyful Noise Foundation.
The Sandlin Foundation, set up by Signature Homes Chairman Dwight Sandlin and his wife, Sandy, on Friday donated the money to the Joyful Noise Foundation established by Miss Hoover 2026 Ali Mims.
The Sandlins were looking to make a difference in the lives of Hoover residents and were impressed with the mission of the Joyful Noise Foundation, which aims to share the joy of music with special needs students across the state who sometimes miss out on such exposure and for students who struggle with anxiety and depression.
Mims’ foundation provides music kits to go directly in special needs classrooms and for music therapy. Each kit contains a mini xylophone, a tambourine, maracas, handbells, a small drum and a QR code to an app with music curriculum, she said.
Because of the donation from the Sandlin Foundation, her foundation will be able to provide more than 110 music kits to every special needs teacher in the Hoover school system, covering all grades (K-12), Mims said.
While she has raised more than $80,000 for her foundation since she started it at age 14 four years ago, this is by far the single largest donation her foundation has ever received, said Mims, who graduated from Chelsea High School in the spring and is now a freshman at Samford University. “It’s insane. I can’t wrap my head around it,” she said.
The previous largest was a $5,000 donation from state Rep. Susan DuBose’s discretionary legislative fund, she said. “It’s a big step up from the $10 checks I was getting when I made ornaments when I was 14,” she said.
Mims said she developed a love for music early in her life, was a peer helper in elementary school and was friends with some of the special needs students. She believes God gave her a special ability to connect with people who have autism, Down syndrome and other mental and physical disabilities and she has seen firsthand how music can have a dramatic impact on their lives.
When she was 14 and first started putting together music kits for special needs students, she set up a booth at a fall festival, and a teenage girl who was nonverbal started playing a xylophone, she said. Then, with her brother, she started singing the words to the Queen song “We Will Rock You.”
“Her mom comes up and starts bawling her eyes out,” Mims said. “She looked at me and said, ‘In all of her 15 years of living, I’ve never heard her say a word,’ and she was singing this song with all of the words. … She just loved the music so much that she was just overcome with this peace, and all of the sudden everything that she had heard came to her and she was able to get it out. Now, her mom takes her to music therapy, and she can talk because of music.
“It was really that moment that I was like, ‘OK, God, this is clearly what you want me to be doing.’” Mims said. “Now there have been so many people that I have introduced to music therapy.”
Photo by Jon Anderson
Miss Hoover 2026 Ali Mims' Joyful Noise Foundation is providing $30,000 worth of music kits to special needs classrooms in Hoover City Schools thanks to a $30,000 donation from the Sandlin Foundation for Kids and Kindness. Mims is shown here with two books she has published to help share the joy of music with special needs children.
While most students get to go to a music class in elementary or middle school, special needs students often don’t get to experience that with their classmates, and that’s not fair, Mims said.
Music can be a calming influence for students with high anxiety and bring them a tremendous amount of joy, she said.
“If you’ve never played the drums or maracas or xylophones with someone that has Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, autism or any kind of physical or mental disability, I really highly recommend that you take the opportunity if you ever get it because of the overwhelming abundance of joy that that’s given me is something that I can’t explain. It has totally changed the trajectory of my life and how I view and see things.
Her foundation is built off the Psalm 100 scripture: “Make a joyful noise unto the Lord,” she said. “I really think that is why it has been able to flourish so much,” she said. “I know that I’m using my gifts to the benefit of the Lord. It’s just been so awesome.”
Mims’ mother, Haley Houston, is a music teacher at Mt Laurel Elementary in Shelby County and said music is very powerful for special needs students. And while Hoover and Shelby County special needs students do get exposure to music, having a music kit like this in their own classroom will provide immediate access to hands-on therapy if needed quickly, Houston said.
Brian Cocke, the district fine arts specialist for Hoover City Schools, said what Mims is doing for schools is great.
“I taught music for 16 years, and they are spot on about everything they said about special needs kids,” he said. “They light up when they come to music and they get to have an instrument in their hand. To be able to provide this for all of our special needs classrooms is incredible.”
There are so many needs in special needs classrooms, and it’s hard to fund all of them, he said.
Hoover schools Superintendent Kevin Maddox said he’s impressed with what Mims is doing. He was not thinking about other people like that at age 14 or probably even in college, he said.
“That’s what gives me hope — to know that we have a generation of young people who really get it,” he said. “Even though sometimes we can all be a little self-centered and focused on ourselves, to think about other people and do things for other people I think is so noble. … I believe this generation is going to change the world. I’ve just seen so much of it.”
