In a hospital bed in Miami, 17-year-old Rebekah Lewis read the hand-written note from a boy in Hawaii.

“I hope this ukulele brings joy and happiness in to your life, and means as much to you as it has meant to me,” the note said. “Each piece of wood was picked by hand to match and flow together, and I hope this can bring some flow and harmony into your life.”

Rebekah opened up the instrument case, took out the hand-crafted ukulele and held it close. Pictures of the moment show her face beaming. She loved the gift.

Rebekah suffers from advanced pulmonary arterial hypertension, a condition stemming from a birth defect that affects her heart and lungs. She has been in the hospital many times in the last several years.

“When Rebekah is at the hospital, music therapy is truly the highlight of her days,” her mother, Tzedakah Cohen, said in an email. “When the music therapist walks into her room Rebekah’s face just lights up into pure delight.”

Rebekah had been learning to play the ukulele on a borrowed instrument, but this handmade ukulele from a Hawaii boy was hers to keep.

How the ukulele went from the hands of its maker to the hands of its owner involved the efforts of many people.

David Blake, CEO of New York-based InsMed Insurance, heard about a nonprofit organization called Ukulele Kids Club that provides instruments and music therapy to children in hospitals across the country.

“I fell in love with their mission and started using my connections in Hawaii and the mainland to help them gain media attention,” Blake said. While in Hawaii, Blake arranged an interview on Hawaii Public Radio with Eddie Monnier of Luthiers For A Cause, a group that makes and donates ukuleles to Ukulele Kids Club.

Punahou physics teacher Jamey Clarke heard the radio interview, and it started him thinking about his students, his curriculum and a brand new learning lab that was opening right next to his classroom.

“The lab has all the tools of what used to be called a ‘maker-space’, and I thought the project would be a great way to show how faculty could redesign curriculum to take advantage of this new resource,” Clarke said. “Access to facts is now so easy. Teachers need to think carefully about which type of learning and thinking will help our students prepare to live successful lives.”

Clarke contacted Blake with the idea of having his students apply physics lessons to making a stringed instrument.

“After speaking with Jamey and learning that they had no experience building ukuleles, I connected him with Kimo Hussey who then in turn brought in Mike Chock to help the class,” Blake said.

Chock, of the Honolulu Luthiers Guild, came weekly to support the project as the students worked on 3-d printers, a laser cutter, water jet cutter and wood router to make the various parts of each instrument.

“It was really fun to work alongside the students and have them be a part of a process that was uncertain,” Clarke said. “There was a real sense of intellectual adventure that I don’t think is always part of the high school learning experience.”

The Punahou juniors and seniors worked on the instruments through the Spring 2018 semester, about four hours per week. Some students became very attached to their ukuleles. Giving the instruments away wasn’t an easy thing.

“For this letting go, we got help from Ke‘alohi Reppun, a kumu in the Hawaiian language and culture department,” Clarke said. “She helped us learn a traditional Hawaiian ‘release’ chant that we performed at the end of the year as we turned the instruments over to David Blake… Many tears were shed.”

Writing the letters with their hopes and wishes for the instruments was part of the students’ process. As for Rebekah, she is writing original songs on the ukulele given to her by Punahou student Brent Scott. Music therapists find the ukulele is a perfect instrument in a hospital setting because it is small, can be played while lying down and produces a joyful sound.

“Music is Rebekah’s thing and this ukulele truly has brought so much joy and happiness, flow and harmony to her life,” her mother said. “We are just absolutely blown away by the work and thoughtfulness that went into all of this, and it was just an incredibly, incredibly kind thing for him to do. This ukulele will always be treasured.”

Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.