Graduation loomed ever closer, and two young violinists had no idea what was coming next.

“It was November, and we were both thinking about what we wanted to do after our last year in school,” Zhu said. “I knew I wanted to make a difference, and so did Mariella, who was already my best friend at the time, so we decided to do something together.”

After seven months of grueling work, the two musicians were on a plane to Iceland, beginning a journey across Europe that would take them to more squalid refugee camps than glittering concert halls.

So how did they make this happen?

The initial planning stages were crucial for the two co-founders: their trust in each other to not just accept responsibilities, but to also carry them out, was imperative. To this day, the two keep a shared iPhone note listing their to-dos, a digital document that continually evolves.

Haubs details the simple – but far from easy – groundwork that was necessary to make their dream a reality. “First we figured out our mutual passions,” she recalls, “and from there we understood that we wanted to use our talents in music to make a difference for people in need. Eventually, we decided on the refugee community.”

She continued with more practical needs. “Then came the hard question: what do we need to do to make that happen? We needed to get plane tickets. We needed contact information for where the refugee camps are. We need to find organizations that will let us in. We need to get general advice. We need to get funding.”

It’s difficult not to walk away impressed by the hustle that these two musicians put themselves through. In interviews, Zhu and Haubs recounted a grueling six-month stretch in which they cold-called all 64 American embassies across Europe, applied for and received grants from the Tarisio Trust and the U.S. Department of State, held five separate Groupmuse collaborations, mounted independent fund-raising concerts in Manhattan, and established a GoFundMe page.

As other musicians have done before them, Zhu and Haubs mastered the art of asking. “We asked everyone we knew for help or advice, and we were blown away with the results.” At Juilliard, Bärli Nugent, Lori Schiff, and Catherine Cho provided invaluable guidance. “With everyone, we’d draft our emails maybe five or six times to really make sure they were clear. We did a lot of work beforehand to create clarity in our requests, to make it easy for people to say yes. Only five percent of our asks ended up working out, but that five percent was more than enough to propel our project forward.”

One of those asks, to Belhaven University, resulted in Zhu and Haubs’ appearance not just in Good Morning America but also the Associated Press and a slew of local outlets. “Belhaven’s PR department, David Sprayberry in particular, did a tremendous amount of work in publicizing CFC after we had a body of work to show,” raves Zhu. “He told us that ‘this should be national news,’ and three weeks later he wrote to us asking if we were available for a Good Morning America interview! We were floored, especially after putting so much blood and sweat into the project.”

Behind the glamour of GMA’s effortless portrait was a tour fraught with uncertainty. “We improvised a lot,” Zhu said. “We had a lot of structured and scheduled concerts, but frequently we just showed up to refugee camps and asked if we could take our violins out and play. Many said no, but some of the camp staff shrugged their shoulders and said yes, too. The whole tour was a life-changing experience. We would play in the middle of these camps without explanation, and after the reactions and conversations we would have with the refugees, we often left in tears.”

Asked for advice she would give to students seeking to also pursue a dream like this, Zhu urged a focus on the bigger picture. “Leaving the environment school creates is very challenging. Goals were often very short term in school: they’re reachable in a semester, a week, sometimes even a day. Staying true to the why of our mission made the ups and downs feel less bumpy.”

Their why is convincing.