Wow!
This reminds me of when we all pitched in to get Composer Ryan a new Yamaha Psr740 ... remember?!? That was such a great community effort!
This zone was sooooooo helpful in that quest that Yamaha USA even donated the keyboard so we could buy other useful gear for his composing needs. We set this kid up with great stuff, and he’s now composing his brains out!
I have to thank Russ for starting this ball rolling. I never would have asked you folks for help, but he was so excited to help my kids ( I sounds like Jerry Lewis !!! ) that I thought, hey - maybe it IS possible to get some of the gear we need to bring our second campus up to the standard that our main campus studio has.
Here's the story, in a nutshell:
New Hope Academy started 25 years ago as a private tutoring facility, but the kids did so well in our environment, and failed so predictably back in public school, that our founder and president found a way to keep the kids FULL time, but stay on a one to one, or very small group lesson schedule.....thereby enabling NHA to graduate these kids! We issue the diploma, hold the graduation, and throw the prom ... the whole deal!
Anyway – many of our kids are very, very talented in the arts. We have a major Mac Lab where we make movies and do computer animation. We have tremendous painters and graphic designers. Our music department is running ProTools, Reason, Logic and more. Our main campus has been set up for a few years, but we just expanded into a second facility ( where I work ) and we don’t have the budget to outfit the music studio as of yet. This is still a Mom & Pop business and we have a 2 to 1 ratio of students to teachers, so you can imagine the payroll we have for teachers alone.
The gear we need in our studio is as follows:
1) Power Mac G5 with expanded RAM and drive storage for digital audio use.
( Approx $4000 )
2) Dual 23” monitors ( we paid $1100, but they just were reduced to $800 each ! )
3) We’re matching a corner studio desk to the one we already have that houses all the gear. It’s a Sauder unit and it was $400 on line.
4) Russ has already given us the 88 key M-Audio keyboard controller we needed, so that’s in place
5) A few desk chairs, cables, mics, windscreens, stands and incidentals bring the grand total of the renovation to just over $7000.
We submitted this bid to our budget committee, and they said – “no way this year.” It’s understandable, because we just moved our main campus into a building that’s TWICE the size of the original one, and we only signed up 3 new kids to help fill it. We’re a non profit school that gets very little help from the parent groups. In most cases, the parents are the reason our kids need this place. Many come from beatings, molestations and other dysfunctional situations. In spite of all this … we send 90% of our seniors to COLLEGE!
NINETY percent !
( truth )
Our kids thrive here. We give them respect when they don’t deserve it, and eventually … they get the idea. I swear, at least once a week, I’m brought to tears by the acts of kindness or growth that I see with these kids. I haven’t even been with this school for an entire year, and I already feel like I’m loosing family members at graduation. I hate to see them ( most of them
) go !
This is a wonderful gesture of community that Russ has started, and I know 96 kids ( and their teachers ) that will be forever changed and blessed by whatever contribution you can give to help them pursue, and achieve their dreams. We have no football team, no marching band, and no cheerleaders. We DO have chess masters, yoga experts, and fantastic, talented, artists, singers, dancers and musicians that can become useful, productive, CREATIVE members of the work force with your help.
Your contributions are tax deductible, heaven blessed, and certain to entertain and educate the musicians of tomorrow! Thanx for listening, and thanx to Russ for starting this wonderful movement in charity. Heartfelt blessing to you all, from Uncle Dave and his kids !
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