Songs written by an Interlochen Center for the Arts student and her instructor are helping the Hurricane Sandy relief effort and will be included in an album alongside works from Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Dave Stewart, Joseph Arthur and many others.

Student Kira Alejandro was inspired to write a song about the hurricane after watching fellow students, faculty and staff members worry about family and friends in the path of the storm.

“There's so much hope that can come out of loss, and that's really what my song is written about," she says.

Helping her was program instructor and Academy singer-songwriter Courtney Kaiser-Sandler, who was coincidentally asked by old friends in Brooklyn to contribute a song for a benefit album. It aims to raise funds for hurricane relief in the hard-hit Red Hook neighborhood, where Kaiser-Sandler had lived for nearly 13 years.

“I had just signed the contract for the relief album when Kira came to her lesson saying she wanted to show me a song she wrote about the hurricane,” she says. “I had goosebumps!”

Kira’s song “Better Days” will be included in the second disk of the “Songs After Sandy” relief album, along with Kaiser-Cartel’s “A Long Way from Home.”

To hear part of the song, click here.