This is why...and thank goodness for people like this who are willing to give back to their community and share their love of music.

Sweetwater founder and president Chuck Surack and his wife Lisa have announced they will donate $500,000 to the Fort Wayne Community Schools Foundation’s “b instrumental” program. The couple also donated 100 band and orchestra instruments, which were presented at a recent media event at North Side High School in Fort Wayne, IN.

The “Chuck and Lisa Surack and Sweetwater Challenge” will match donations from the community and officially launches a $3 million fundraising campaign for the “b instrumental” program. Started two years ago, the program provides musical instruments free of charge to middle school students to use throughout high school, along with added instruction and other enrichment activities.

More here at Mix Magazine...
http://www.mixonline.com/news/news-...struments-fort-wayne-community-schools/430273

 

Wow, that's pretty awesome!

 

Ignorance is bliss.....

 

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Could you elaborate.

De-funding sucks and I agree that school music programs should have their own money to spend and maybe some day they will again. However, if you take on this doesn't have anything to with aliens, the moon being made out of cheese, or anything highly dubious I would like to be enlightened if you are feeling generous enough to share.

 

Is that the name of your charity of choice?

 

Hey, Moogerfooger, what would be your objection to donating to the charity if some rich people would match whatever you thoughtfully gave to the children in Fort Wayne after some other rich folks cut off funding (because of mismanagement and thoughtlessness) towards their music program which thankfully would now insure 31,000 children would have access to musical instruments as well as the incredible benefits derived mentally, physically, creatively as may as dare I say, spiritually, and that it would showcase the fuckheaded-ness of the administration's involved in the fucked-upedness of defunding the arts (let us all give a community finger to the ridiculous Mike Pence and his dusturbing ilk). Personally, if it wasn't for my school district's offer of a free trumpet, private music lessons as well as a band and orchestra program (RIP Mr. Price) I might not have become a musician and have had this amazing outlet for my creative passions. I ask you, why have I blinders on?

 

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this is a fine American tradition.. those who have made it in spades.. giving something back to the generations to come

if you don't like it.. hell wit ya.... too bad people in your country don't do the same

Greets and Thanks to the Sweetwater founders for their musical philanthropy

 

a little taste of American musical excellence.... hopefully more to come .. someday

 

A little bit of background on perhaps why the great need of suppliment funding for the arts. By my calculation the district is only spending about $48 per student in the "b-instrumental" program, music instruction as per the above article for 1.5 million dollars for the total 38,980 students. Now, after all is said and done, there will be 5 million for the music program, 500, 000 from the Suracks of Sweetwater, 1.5 million from the district and 3 million from the fundraising activities. The children as well as the entire community benefit from this win-win scenario of funding the arts.

This is a well researched article on Pence's affect on the arts in Indiana. Not a pretty picture and one that is mimicked across the country.
http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2013/12/mike-pence-his-artist-wife-and-death-of.html

 

I see.

So it is basically a tax break 'donation' + double tax on people who wish to support music programs by getting to donate money for something their tax dollars should already be buying for their children, while using the money that used to fund those programs to become profits in a school system that has been sold off to for profit organizations who now run the schools.

Thank you for the information.

Greed knows no bounds, but someone is voting for the people who put all this stuff in place. You can't blame a tiger for eating your children, if you insist on putting your kids in the tiger cage.

Thanks again man. Every year the temptation to cash out and become an ex-patriot American grows more and more... stuff like this makes my soul tired. Should have bought an extra house in Catalonia when real estate was dirt cheap over there, but now with all the crazy shit going on in the world I don't even know where to go.

I guess I'll try to get Mr. Musk's wait list to go to Mars whenever he decides to go back to his home planet.

 

Yup, everything you mentioned rings unfortunately and sadly true...

The ex-pat thing for me is sometimes like a great big satisfying, relaxing exhale as I am very happy to have my precious daughter growing up in this European country where six year olds still have the luxury to walk unattended to their kindergarten, while at other times I feel I should be both actively intellectually as well as physically involved in the dialogue back home, and because I am not, sometimes feel my words are much less impactful as I am not in the midst of the debate.

 

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at this point.... talk is getting a bit pointless... and I have wished many times I could be in a more peaceful place
good on ya you're not here wasting your breath.... just enjoy the chalet wonderland..

The public school system in the US is a national disgrace for the most part..and will leave
us far behind other nations.. in the knowledge that will run the future.. also sad but true..

Universities are even worse in certain terms, but mostly in the fact that for 4 years
at State Uni.. the costs run to USD 80,000 now... and many kids come out with
debts up to $100,000 .. talk about financially destroying your next generation before
they even get started? way to go team USA....

 

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I'd like to know exactly why the dislike.
I think any chance for a kid to get their hands on an instrument in order to be exposed at a young impressionable age to music and the making of it is pretty awesome, especially when that opportunity wasn't there before, and damn all of the politics, tax breaks, and side benefits involved by the so called "grown ups" involved. I mean what's not to like about that?
I really would like to know what is so bad about acknowledging a good thing like this. I mean wow, someone stepped up and donated INSTRUMENTS! Not just cash which will certainly be misappropriated.

 

Sweetwater is great. A while back they helped a customshop Luthier whose shop had burned down. Great deals too. And they send candy lol.

 

Charity of choice, what's that?
If you don't live in the U.S., it's not easy to understand, why, in the richest country of the world, the school system is such a mess in financing of public schools.

In Europe, most of the countries use a lot of tax $$ for public elementary-, middle- and high schools. A teacher, for instance in an elementary school in Germany earns around $5.500 a month. In middle- and highschools a teacher would earn even more and will be in the top 30% income range. And as a civil servant it's a lifelong job with free health insurance and pension. Most schools in most german states are equipped VERY well and there'll be an musical instrument for EVERY kid, regardless of the income of the parents. With the Universities, it's quite the same. Well equipped. Everything is almost free. Not bad, eh?

BUT, on the other hand taxes and costs for mandatory social systems are very high in Germany (up to 80% of salary, employer and employee combined). Hence no one is giving away a bigger amount of money. Commonly the people think it's the obligation of the country/state to help.

There is no culture of giving away money for the community here at the moment. And it develops very slowly.
You won't find a "Peter&Petra Meyer Wing" in a german hospital!

But when one gives, it is most likely he/she won't speak about it in the public.
Most of the people find it disgusting if one speaks about his/her own generosity. At the most it would be acceptable if the person is already dead or if it's a company.

It's more common to help by doing voluntary work in the church or other organisations. And even about this work, you won't talk much in the public.

So, when the common people in Germany read about a couple giving away a large amount of money for a middle school, they may find it disgusting, when a campaign is named after a living person.

Funny eh?

There are differences between US and Europe, and it sometimes is no so easy to understand each other.

 

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@twoheart, outstanding explanation.
I had never heard or experienced that a German wouldn't normally acknowledge any charity they had done in the six years I was there, though I undoubtedly didn't learn everything about the culture in such a short period. I am left to wonder what the reasoning is behind that.
I would guess that they see it as being braggadocious, possibly. But we Americans celebrate such charity with recognition.

 

"There are differences between US and Europe, and it sometimes is not so easy to understand each other"

hi there,

The differences are easy to understand, when you know them and don't judge.
they're huge, and small.

whe are the same people, in europe for exemple: " Kids come out with debts up to $100,000" same problem.

but when on movies "the president of the united states is the leader of the free world" i'm not making fun but, it's impossible for me not to

laugh.

what free world? Wars?, economy?, nato? , it's better to have knowledge, not what's on the tv or whatever, and first of all, i try to not be

afraid

my friends, like Plato said:

"If we want to know people, it is necessary to listen to its music" and i love the Blues

Cheers from spain

 

No wonder, you didn't hear about, I don't think Germans are proud of. A bit of a tabu.
Yes, it's partly because we see (feel) it as braggadociousness, but it's also parsimony and, of course envy. Excuse is the tax thing ;)
But even under the very rich, there is almost no culture of charity. They just don't get it.

Only some weeks before Christmas, there is a little bit of organized charity celebrated in TV.

Here is a statistics based on head count:
US: 710,50€ /per person and year
DE: 132,20€/ per person and year

https://de.statista.com/statistik/d...s-spendenvolumens-in-deutschland-und-den-usa/


On the other hand: When our Chancelorette invited the refugees from Syria, there was and is a big movement under the common people to help. It's not all black & white

 

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a joke

 

I buy from Sweetwater as often as possible. The very small downside to dealing with them is their overly-agressive phone salesmen, who are guaranteed to call your house every week for six months after buying anything more expensive than an instrument cord.

That said, it's still worth it, especially the quarterly catalog, which is like having musician porn delivered to your house.