Infuse U.S. Classrooms with Music for Learning!

Dear Music Lover and GITC Program Supporter,

Thank you for giving Guitars in the Classroom your encouragement and support over the past school year to make musical learning a reality for children in need! We've done so much together!

Now as teachers prepare for the final weeks of school, making music has become a sort of survival tool in the classrooms. Teachers who trained with us this year are employing songs to engage their students in lessons and in feeling good at a time of year that can feel burdensome with high stakes testing, report cards and conferences. Students who are prone to anxiety under these circumstances find their joy and their calm inside music. Teachers who use the strumming and singing to empower their students to focus, reinforce their knowledge and think positively before tests have happier and more successful classrooms. When everyone sings together, smiles increase and so do test scores. Many classrooms are even singing songs to reinforce their test preparation and test taking strategies.

But going to school shouldn't be about taking tests, right? The music you are helping us provide creates a much more humane learning environment, one rich in opportunities to become creatively expressive,

In the middle of all the year end tasks, kids are needing the chance to cut loose without going wild. Music gives them that. The strumming and singing, coupled with movement and rhythm provide much needed "brain breaks" when teachers pick up a guitar and play a fun song. Kids can get up out of their seats and dance to let off steam and de-stress. Then they feel ready to get back to business.

This month, students are also practicing songs they have learned to play and songs they have written together in their regular classrooms and music classes in preparation for end of year concerts and celebrations for learning. Excitement is in the air! For example, at San Miguel Elementary in Lemon Grove, CA, students from three grades as well as the guitar club are preparing to perform songs with ukuleles and guitars on May 25! Trainer Dan Decker and his big posse of strumming, songleading teachers are filling the halls of the school with music. We are looking forward to sharing some end of year photos and video with you in June from that special day.

This year, with your involvement, GITC has helped place thousands of ukuleles into preschools, elementary, middle and high schools and we have trained and equipped hundreds of teachers with guitars and ukuleles from California to South Carolina, coast to coast, and from National City, not far from the Mexican border, to Burlington, VT in the opposite corner of the country. Our free workshops for teachers have taken place in big cities like San Diego, Los Angeles and Brooklyn, mid-sized  communities like Worcester, Massachusetts and Longmont, Colorado, and in small, rural communities like Clay, West Virginia and Hardeeville in Jasper County, South Carolina. You have literally helped us bring music making to learning for children in need who come from very diverse families and communities. Thank you for your partnership in reviving music in the schools in these and many other places.

Please make a new contribution to this campaign if you can. We've almost reached out goal! Imagine the joy when we work together to wrap the 2016-17 school year up with a resounding success on Bonus Matching Day on June 15th!

As always, you can watch the ;latest videos from GITC and see what is happening in the schools when you visit our facebook page. Just last Saturday, several teachers joined me on KUSI television in San Diego to share about what music has meant this year to their students. You can watch the clip at www.facebook.com/guitarsintheclassroom.

Right alongside children experiencing childhood in positive and less challenging ways, our military children, homeless children, and children in communities suffering from economic hardship are getting to express themselves, discover their creative abnilities and potential, and feel a sense of belonging all because you care.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for all you have allowed me and GITC's compassionate faculty members to accomplish. Together, we are making a remarkable difference for kids.

With you for the children,

Jess

Links:

• our website