As a little girl in San Francisco, Jane Anne Sullivan would dance in her living room with her four sisters while listening to the Victrola.

“We always pretended we were on a stage.”

She fondly remembers George Cohan’s movie, YANKEE DOODLE DANDY, while she breaks into spontaneous song on this crisp October afternoon in her garden just off Funston Avenue. We can hear the birds chirping, a few butterflies flitter and a squirrel darts into the next yard.

Jane Anne is the mother of eight children and being the oldest of eight, I know that family dynamic can lend itself to in-house theatre without the curtain. Jane Anne had her first child at twenty-one and her eighth child at forty-eight. She became a mother and a grandmother simultaneously. In fact, her youngest daughter, Rose Magdalene, was an Aunt eight times before she was born. The number eight figures prominently in the Sullivan household.

When Jane Anne’s first four children were small, she and her husband Terry opened up their backyard to all neighborhood children for a production of the song, The Fox. The admission requirement was a penny or a button. Again Jane Anne sings melodiously,

“The fox went out on a windy night-prayed for the moon to give him light.”

It was many years later when Jane Anne was working part-time for Amway and making presentations in people’s homes.

“I went to this house and this mother said to her four year old daughter,

“Do you want to sing for the nice lady?”

“This little girl got onto the fireplace step and sang and sang. I asked her, where she learned to sing like that and she said,’ I’m in the Sunshine Band.’

Jane Anne approached the Monsignor at St. Anne’s with her sunshine idea and on Wednesday afternoon’s was given a room so that her children, grandchildren and neighborhood children could sing, and their Sunshine Band began.

“They were all little, three and four year olds and couldn’t read. So I’d teach the children sing-along songs, Let Me Call you Sweetheart, When You Wore A Tulip, A Big Yellow Tulip and I Wore A Big Red Rose, It’s A Grand Old Flag and the classic Christmas Carols, Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, 12 days of Christmas, Silent Night.”

After washing the dinner dishes Jane learned these songs as a child around the piano with her parents and siblings. She was one of seven children.

“You know there was no T.V. in those days and we sang. That’s what I loved about my childhood. It was simple that way. We had more pretend time.”

Pretend time is precisely what Jane Anne wants to give to children today.

Jane Anne explains how her endeavor blossomed.

“In the early days, the Sunshine Band performed at the Christmas show and fashion shows at St. Anne’s church. I was approached from a representative from C.Y.O. (Catholic Youth Organization) asking if I’d like to take my program across the city like Sports programs.”

It was then that Jane Anne and her daughter Noel designed a day camp for kids, to sing, to dance to act. Kid. Stock Inc. was born and has broadened.

Initially, my daughter taught singing, I taught dancing and my daughter’s friend taught drama. We got other people to help with costumes and art.”

Today, they have nine theatre day camps in the Bay area.

“It’s a full program with five adults teaching to every fifty kids and five teenage assistants.”

The summer camp gave way to an in-school and after school programs with a small team. Jane Anne spends much of the year searching for funding and arranges neighborhood garage sales to benefit the nonprofit- Kid Stock, Inc.

How has she seen her program transform a child?

“Often, you see a shy child and when they learn their lines or the words to a song, they become ten feet tall. They glow. I see children new to this country, just learning English. I watch as they become confident.”

Jane Anne likes the neighborhood.

“Our house is on a corner, its quiet, across from a Public School and a few blocks from church.”

Now, that her children are grown, Jane Anne and her husband Terry open their home and host foreign exchange students that come and go throughout the year.

Tell me about motherhood.

“I wasn’t the kind of mother that was dusting. I was on the floor with the kids.”

And a Grandmother to nineteen?

“That’s even more fun.”

Her grandchildren range in age from five to twenty-seven.

Who inspires Jane Anne Sullivan?

“My family. I’m a staunch believer and my husband Terry believes in me. He’s always there for me.”

And I can hear those lyrics from, FOR ME AND MY GAL,

“When you wore a tulip, a big yellow tulip and I wore a big red rose. When you caressed me, ‘twas then Heaven blessed me, what a blessing no one knows.”

NEXT WEEK : MEET COMPUTER GENIUS: JEFF FROM NEW DIGIT COMPUTERS.