Hi Folks – A few updates from our organization for May of 2022.
At our 5th official board meeting of our new organization we welcomed our newest board member Tim Trout, bringing our group up to 7 individual board members. Tim is a husband, father, and guitar player, as well as the Senior Vice President of Peoples Bank. We’re excited to have his energy and experience join our team.
We’ve added a Group Application to our website, for schools &/or non-profits and the like, to apply for funds, as well as an area you can ask us to Memorialize Someone. If you know a local artist who has passed and want to honor them with a listing in our organization, we invite you to do so here.
We recently donated a brand new “Recording King” acoustic guitar to the Athens County Children Services “Santa Tree Project” so one young woman can learn to play, which has been her dream for quite some time. Pictured above is AAMP Board Member Dawn Graham, along side Matt Starkey, Public Relations & Community Events Coordinator for ACCS accepting the guitar, as well as Blue Eagle Frank ducking in the background. 😉
We also we’re excited to donate an “electric guitar starter kit” to Dylan. This is a cool little kit, pictured on left, that not only includes a Les Paul Guitar model, but also an amplifier, cables, tuner, and five online guitar lessons!
Also wanted to remind our friends of Lucian & Lori Spataro’s kind offer to match any donation dollar for dollar this Summer up to $2,500.00! So if you are inclined to donate to our cause, your kindness will be doubled, so give until it hurts (him!) 😉
In other news, we created our Candid Guidestar Profile in an effort to grow the legitimacy of our organization, as well as offer as much transparency as possible in regards to our finances.
GuideStar lists information on every nonprofit registered with the IRS as tax exempt, as well as data on former nonprofits. GuideStar obtains the information from the nonprofits themselves, the federal government, and partners in the nonprofit sector. Check out our profile, which is a work in progress, here.
We also now have a mailing list, so if you are interested in receiving monthly updates from our organization, sign up by entering your email address in the bottom right footer area of any page.
Even more donations from AAMP
We have awarded our first scholarship to a young woman majoring in elementary education with a minor in music. We gave her $500 to incorporate music in her classroom. We also awarded Federal Valley Resource Center $300 for their instrument library
We recently earmarked $1000 in 2022 for band camps, and $215 for a full scholarship for a Dairy Barn Teen Arts Camp, both of which we’ll talk more about in our next update once the donations have been finalized.
We also received this wonderful note of thanks from Stuart’s Opera House, in regards to the After School Music Program:
“In 2019 the Johnny B & John Spataro Music Fund (now AAMP) made a $1000 gift to Stuart’s Opera House Arts Education Program. This gift was to be used to obtain equipment and supplies for the After School Music Program’s students to perform on stage at the 2020 Nelsonville Music Festival.
Due to the pandemic, the in-person music festival was cancelled, but we held a Virtual Nelsonville Music Festival at which the Afterschool Music Program’s students did perform two sets recorded virtually.
The generous gift from AAMP did supply the program’s students with special equipment and technology needs to have rehearsals via Zoom – while not in the physical company of their fellow musicians.
You can view here the performances of original songs the Afterschool Music Program’s students wrote, composed and performed, below.
We are so grateful for the support from the Johnny B & John Spataro Fund – and look forward to an exciting partnership with the Athens Artists Memorial Project!”
All for now, good things abound! Contact Us if you have any thoughts or questions.