KTBA Donates Ukulele Tuners to Elementary School ***UPDATE 6/9/23*** Dear Keeping The Blues Alive Foundation, Inc., Thank you for donating to this project. We started ukuleles [in February] and I cannot believe how well it is going. I never thought I could let my students tune their own instruments! But it is working! I am very impressed with their ability to hear that their ukulele is out of tune and how to tune it! I have a few orchestral string players in 4th and 5th grade so I let them be the leaders first and I am hoping as the unit progresses I will branch out the leadership role to other students. The install on the holders is in progress and to prepare for this today I was able to let them all get their own instrument rather than I hand them out. We are practicing safe handling procedures and it went well. It saved a lot of time for me, I was able to start class as they got their own instruments and did not have to wait for me to pass one out to almost 30 students! Thank you again for your kindness and donation. It is so helpful to have these resources to use. With gratitude, Mrs. Dupont NEW BRITAIN, CT – Thanks to your donations, Keeping the Blues Alive Foundation has donated clip-on tuners, guitar wall mount hangers, and guitar picks to the young students at Smith Elementary School in New Britain, CT! About the Project “We are very fortunate to have ukuleles at my school,” Mrs. Dupont says. “However, [the ukuleles] have no place to safely go when not being played, and I feel I spend so much time tuning them for my students.” Last year, Smith Elementary School purchased ukuleles for Grades 3, 4 and 5 to use in their music class. The students love the ukuleles but it has become very difficult to manage time when so much is spent on upkeep! I found it was very time consuming tuning every ukulele myself, which took away from instructional time. – Mrs. Dupont About the Students “I would love to have class leaders in each class tune them at the beginning of class, and eventually having all students tune them on their own using the tuners. This will allow me to take attendance and start the class with my full attention. In addition, the ukulele wall mounts will provide a safe place for these instruments to be stored when not being used.” When it was time to clean up, the ukuleles went into a big tupperware bin (yikes)! Everyone knows that’s a one way ticket to destruction when you have youngsters dumping their instruments into one plastic bin for use. It could be helpful for percussion instruments (and that’s a stretch) but maybe not so much for string instruments. “The felt picks will help little fingers strum, which was hard for many last year.” Mrs. Dupont expresses her gratitude with this note: Dear Keeping The Blues Alive Foundation, Inc., Thank you so much for supporting my music students! I am very excited to start teaching the ukuleles this year with student leaders in each class. Your kindness has such a huge impact at my school. Our budget is so low there would be no way to provide these items for my students. We truly appreciate you and can’t wait to start using the tuners, pics and wall mounts! With gratitude, Mrs. Dupont About Us Keeping the Blues Alive Foundation is a 501c3 organization that makes a donation every week to schools in need of music instruments, supplies, sheet music, and more! Your donation helps us to keep music in schools while preserving Blues heritage. Without your support, we would not be able to reach as many students as we have around the country (80,000 and counting!). On behalf of Joe Bonamassa and his awesome staff, we are grateful for your generosity. If you would like to help us fund next week’s project, click here to make a donation! Under CAMPAIGN, select “Weekly Donation Fund 2023” which supports our weekly donation program! All donations are fully tax-deductible! Thank you for keeping music education in schools!