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day 32 - mustache said knock you out - rope-a-dope style. the final day to give!
Huge thanks to Chrissy “Marz” Mazzeo, Steve “Bubby” Simon, Dave “El Prinicipal” Deyoung, Carmen “Baskette of Donations” Henrikson, Afam “Bumbaye” Agbodike, Victor “Do what you do” Chu, Roger “Rogue” Mann, Damon “Fonzy” Franz, Alta “Ni how ma” Tseng, Teresa “TV!” Valderrama, Kimmy Kay Peterson, Morgan “Southern Belle” Andrews, Mark “Squealy” Healy, Michael “The Money Man” Cunniff, Scott Larock Lovernick in honor of Kali Hayes and a MONSTER THANK YOU to Justin “The Judge” Halloran for coming correct once again.
We’ve raised $9,693 to help kids in need! Amazing!
This is it y’alls! The final stretch! The last hurrah!
Great news is I went to bed last night in first place thanks to all of you.
Not so great news is I woke up this morning down by a slim margin.
This is the time for the mustache rope-a-dope (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rope-a-dope). This is where we turn it on full blast and make it happen. For all of you that have been waiting for the last minute to give, the time is now.
Check out this photo and letter from a music teacher in an underfunded district in the Bronx. Your donations have helped these kids have a platform and an opportunity to shine.
Dear All-
I would like to add my own words of appreciation to those expressed by my students Brandon and Jeremy in their letters. Brandon and Jeremy are both ninth graders and promising first-year trumpet students in the beginner level of the jazz orchestra in our small public high school in the Bronx, and their musical promise now has a guide for one academic quarter thanks to your generosity.
My students are poor teenagers, mostly African-American and Latino, all living in the South Bronx - and like most kids who you can say that about, have had almost no formal music education in a stripped-down public school system. To reverse that and give our students a forum to shine, we have a jazz orchestra program at my school that is entirely supported through donations from generous donors such as yourselves, since the school has no music budget beyond my salary. One aspect of the jazz orchestra program that happens to be the key to its success also happens to be the most difficult to fund, namely the use of professional instrumental jazz instructors for each of the instruments in our orchestra (flute, clarinet, saxophone, trumpet, trombone, cello, guitar, bass, drums, and keyboard). It has proven much easier over the years to raise money for instruments than for the instructors, without which the instruments themselves will have amounted to a wasted investment.
Thus, your farsighted courage in realizing the importance of funding this project for one quarter’s worth of private trumpet lessons for Jeremy, Brandon, and the other six trumpeters in the jazz orchestra program is rather unique. I and my students appreciate not only your generosity, but also the entrepreneurial spirit of your donation, which will reap a much higher return on investment than hardware alone.
With gratitude,
Mr. P.
