Dear Friend,
This project to which you have generously contributed in the past has received a significant update. I am writing to ask you to take a fresh look so you can see the progress your previous generosity has made possible. If you are pleased with the growth of the work and feel you wish to help it continue, this is a great time to stay with the effort. Here is why:
This winter, we have been bowled over by growing student response to this opportunity to learn a new instrument, or to continue learning guitar after a successful first effort in 2022. The project is succeeding for three important reasons.
First, word got out that our teachers are totally "there" for the students, and that our approach is achievable. New student enrollment in the beginning section of the club at three high schools positively exploded in March. For the first three weeks students had to share guitars because we honestly didn't have enough. We didn't see this jump in enrollment coming.
Second, several students who took part in the very first clubs last year, and who are still in high school this year, have re-enrolled this winter. They are excited, passionate, dedicated, and are so grateful to own their own guitars thanks in large part to contributions to this project! Some are composing, some are writing original lyrics, some have taken off with learning more advanced skills through independent study. So we have hired a new instructor for them, Brazilian, classical, and Latin genre guitarist Richard M. to take these high achievers forward.
Third, your donations collectively have helped us fill about 30% of the requests for guitars. This was essential! When we expected 15 students and 72 signed up at Morse HS, it was great problem to have. But an expensive one! We willingly overspent our budget out of necessity because last month, 100 new, playable, nylon string guitars were needed so we didn't have to turn students away.
Thanks to 28 donated protege guitars from Cordoba Guitars and 14 more from the Guitar Center Music Foundation, we have gotten much-needed help filling this immense demand. But even so, we still needed to spend $6000 supplying the rest!
The great news is that in both San Diego and Los Angeles, the school districts now see the point of these programs. The cost of instruction is being covered by district funds for improving student engagement, and expanding student learning. Still, this leaves GITC with the cost of the instruments in order to help these kids find their voices and develop musical skills, focus, discipline, dedication, creativity, and a more promising future. Why? Because the districts can only purchase instruments that belong to and remain at school.
Without you, without us, they cannot practice at home, cannot share the music with their families, cannot have time on their instruments to learn or compose new music. Then, once the club ends, they will have no way to keep going.
These students must see a future for themselves with their own guitar in order to invest their time, energy, effort, and talent. But they come from such immensely humble means that buying their own guitar is simply out of reach. Just having food to eat and a bed to sleep in is a challenge for many. Receiving medical care or supplies can be out of reach. Affording community college will be a reach.
It takes positivity, promise, grit, and resilience to rise above such challenges. Making music helps. When you help a student own their own guitar, this inspires in each one a feeling of hope, pride, and a sense of mattering, belonging, feeling trusted, believed in, and worthy. It's a very big deal.
Please stay with us, and if you can find it in your heart to donate, please give again. You are the guitar heroes for youth at promise. Your care will help them strive for excellence, and encourage them to discover and tap their potential in this world.
Thank you so much for your care and support of these students, I know they will make you proud!
Jess
Links:
As schools complete their fall semester, at-risk older youth in Los Angeles and San Diego are building hope and connection by making music together, in person, and they are truly learning to be excellent musicians, and to play guitar. We are proud of these teens as well as their inspiring GITC teachers.
Our program leaders in San Diego, Dan Decker, and in Los Angeles, Christopher Clarke, are pouring their hearts and expertise into the students in these classes. We are thrilled that things are going so well that the administrators at each school have given a green light to continuing all school year long! In addition to reaching teens in economically vulnerable communitiies, we have also added a new 4-day-per-week restorative guitar program for younger teens at Millennial Tech Middle School in the southeaster region of San Diego. Taught by the amazing Mr. Decker, this class started as an experiment and is growing in popularity and attendance weekly.
We are very fortunate this year to have support for the instrument provision for these programs from both the Reverb Foundation and the Guitar Center Foundation! Students have received excellent guitars which they will keep at the point of graduation, as well as soft, padded gig bags to keep the guitars safe, donated by TKL Cases. The latest support just arrived from the top guitar education websites in the U.S., JamPlay.com and Truefire.com. These two platforms offer guitar instruction taught be outstanding teachers and luminary musicians, online, 24/7, and the company has just donated one year memberships to all of our students who are showing passion for the instrument! So much care from the music products and music foundation side of what we do is helping these students realize how important they are to others. What a blessing everyone has been!
Thank you for helping Guitars in the Classroom seed and develop this program! Your gifts have been put to important use supporting resilience, creativity, musicality, and hope in students who needed and wanted a chance to learn. Our new faculty members in both districts are teaching with GITC in person this fall and are very inspired by the students’ enthusiasm!
We hope you love this work and will continue to support our efforts to make this work more widely available in 2023. Your kindness will inspire so many students during this critical turnaround year in their lives.
Looking forward to teaming up with you to help all of these deserving teens make it to high school graduation this year with the power of music to carry them forward as they launch into young adulthood.
Thank you from the bottom of our hearts,
Jess and Gail
Links:
As the new school year begins, principals and teachers continue to focus on building hope and connection for at-risk older youth. Thanks to your support, the two South Los Angeles (LAUSD) continuation high schools we’ve been serving with your help over the past two years are continuing with GITC this fall. We are finally going to be able to teach the classes in person!
More good news - these two special schools gave us a chance to launch similar programs for youth-at-promise in San Diego since last spring. Garfield, Morse, and Lincoln high schools in San Diego serve students from economically challenged and marginalized neighborhoods in San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD), and none of these schools has had a guitar program before. We served dozens of teens, and the students in every program earned their own guitars after learning together for 12 weeks. It was a joyful graduation indeed. Then, over the summer, we added another program at Clairemont high school, fusing guitar education with literacy development focusing on the writing of Sandra Ciseneros and Elizabeth Acevado.
Thank you for helping Guitars in the Classroom seed and develop this program. Your gifts have been put to important use supporting resilience, creativity, musicality, and hope in students who needed and wanted a chance to learn. We hope the work can gain in popularity in 2022-2023 so more youth gain access, instruction, support, and the gift of lifelong musicality.
To get all of these programs going, we are excited to share that we’ve added new faculty members in both districts who can teach with GITC in person this fall. Please join us in welcoming Nick Costa and Christopher Clarke to the GITC Faculty!
We hope you love this work and will continue to support our charity to provide NEW guitars and accessories to several groups of students coming into classes this fall. Your kindness will inspire them during this critical turnaround year in their lives.
Looking forward to teaming up with you to help all of these deserving teens make it to high school graduation this year with the power of music to carry them forward as they launch into young adulthood.
Thank you from the bottom of our hearts,
Jess and Gail
Links:
As the new school year begins, principals and teachers continue to focus on building hope and connection for at-risk older youth. Thanks to your support, the two South Los Angeles (LAUSD) continuation high schools we’ve been serving with your help over the past two years are continuing with GITC this fall. We are finally going to be able to teach the classes in person!
More good news - these two special schools gave us a chance to launch similar programs for youth-at-promise in San Diego since last spring. Garfield, Morse, and Lincoln high schools in San Diego serve students from economically challenged and marginalized neighborhoods in San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD), and none of these schools has had a guitar program before. We served dozens of teens, and the students in every program earned their own guitars after learning together for 12 weeks. It was a joyful graduation indeed. Then, over the summer, we added another program at Clairemont high schoo, fusing guitar education with literacy development focusing on the writing of Sandra Ciseneros and Elizabeth Acevado.
Thank you for helping Guitars in the Classroom seed and develop this program. Your gifts have been put to important use supporting resilience, creativity, musicality, and hope in students who needed and wanted a chance to learn. We hope the work can gain in popularity in 2022-2023 so more youth gain access, instruction, support, and the gift of lifelong musicality.
To get all of these programs going, we are excited to share that we’ve added new faculty members in both districts who can teach with GITC in person this fall. Please join us in welcoming Nick Costa and Christopher Clarke to the GITC Faculty!
We hope you love this work and will continue to support our charity to provide NEW guitars and accessories to several groups of students coming into classes this fall. Your kindness will inspire them during this critical turnaround year in their lives.
Looking forward to teaming up with you to help all of these deserving teens make it to high school graduation this year with the power of music to carry them forward as they launch into young adulthood.
Thank you from the bottom of our hearts,
Jess and Gail
Dear Supporters,
Thanks to your help with this project, GITC has been able to cover a shortfall in district funding for our guitar residencies in the continuation and alternative high schools in Los Angeles Unified this winter. We couldn't have done it without you. This included getting new guitars to both high schools so new groups of students could participate this semester.
The most recent development is that we were asked to participate in a special meeting in which John Hope High School underwent a review to make the grade for official accreditation. We didn't know what to expect when when we zoomed in. Schools can become highly stressed when they are under WASC review. But John Hope's inspired leadership looked at this as a communication opportunity. By inviting us into the conversation, it turned the discussion to creating a more meaningful, engaging and relevant educational approach by integrating music for teens in crisis.
The accreditors were so creative, compassionate and interested in how music is helping kids boost their social emotional well being. They were immensely inspired by the relevance for BIPOC students of teaching Blues guitar and songwriting with a focus on the life and music of Muddy Waters.
So rather than talking about grades and test scores, they started generating lesson ideas and asked us to send them information about our charitable work because they think more high schools need access.Their emphasis on the importance of supporting student identity, resilience, and well-being, especially in light of the impact of the pandemic, is so encouraging.
Thank you for taking a moment to celebrate with us this new sign of good things to come.
With gratitude,
Jess
Links:
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