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Dweezil Zappa Helps GNG!

dweezil-zappaWe are excited to announce that guitarist extraordinaire, Dweezil Zappa, will appear on a rock celebrity edition of “Chopped” on the Food Network in an attempt to win $10,000 for our charity!

 

Premiering Tuesday, August 18th at 10pm – “Rock Stars”

Four rock stars with a passion for cooking (Lita Ford, Kelly Hansen, Eddie Ojeda and Dweezil Zappa) take over the Chopped kitchen in hopes of winning $10,000 for their favorite cause. In the first round, the cooks attempt to make harmonious appetizers with a bubbly drink. In the entree round, lamb is the jam. The final rock ‘n’ roll-themed round has the competitors cooking with rock candy and lemon rolls.

Host: Ted Allen

Judges: Alex Guarnaschelli, Aarón Sánchez, Chris Santos

 

Win or not, Dweezil will always be a guitar hero in our book! Thanks Dweezil!

North Ridge Class Completed

Awesome Group! GNG instructors extraordinaire Brandon Kelly, Kerry Milligan, and Ryan Countrymen wrapped up a Level 1 class at North Ridge Community Church in May with 7 fantastic students.   Not only did each of these students work incredibly hard to learn to play the guitar, they also got up on stage in front of […]

Fundraising Success!

The Arizona chapter of GNG, like every nonprofit organization, needs funds in order to carry on our mission of providing free guitars and lessons to foster & adopted kids, at-risk youth, and other underserved kids. For 2015 we realized that we needed to do something big in order to raise as much money in the most efficient way possible. So, we decided to gather up some great GNG volunteers and supporters and play 100 holes of golf!

 

Each participant set out with a goal to raise as many dollars as they could for every hole of golf they played. In the end, 17 golf participants attracted donations from more than 220 donors for a total of just over $28,000! Amazing!

 

Here’s our incredible group of volunteers.

gng fundraising participants

From L to R: Leo Lambert, Brandon Kelly, Jack Wilson, Tammie Evans, Marc Taylor, Colin Canavan, Dan Busse, Chris Price, Mike Johnson, Melinda Frankel, JT Shoaf, Karen Bird, Ryan Bird, Pablo Rodriguez, BethAnne Countrymen, Ryan Countrymen, and RJ Kohlmeyer

 

We were also able to get Alice Cooper’s autograph on a couple of guitars that were donated to us, which we then raffled off to a couple of our highest performing participants.

These two guitars were autographed by none other than Alice Cooper! They were raffled off to those that raised the most money

These two guitars were autographed by none other than Alice Cooper! They were raffled off to those that raised the most money

 

This was an absolutely astounding showing from our participants and we couldn’t be more grateful for their support. Thanks to everyone who participated or donated. This powers our program for some time to come!

Fundraising Committee Member

Position Description Work with other passionate and dedicated volunteers to identify fun, creative, and effective ways to raise funds for the ‘Guitars not Guns Music Program’ benefitting Arizona’s foster children, at-risk youth, and other deserving kids!  Funds can be raised through direct public donations, community-centric organizations, or through endowments and foundations.  Funds can be raised […]

Guitar Teacher

Position Description: Directly and positively impact the lives of foster children and at-risk youth through teaching them guitar!  Lead or assist in leading a guitar class of no more than ten children between the ages of 8 and 18 using an established ‘Guitars not Guns’ curriculum.  Through the eight-week curriculum, children learn perseverance, discipline, and […]