Hey Little Kids Rock™ fans!

Big Kenny, of Big & Rich fame, visited Mount View Elementary School on Tuesday as part of a Fender™ and Little Kids Rock™ initiative that brought 140 Guild® acoustic guitars to five schools in the Metropolitan Nashville Public School District.

The country music star fielded questions, jammed with the class, and became a Little Kids Rock™ Honorary Board Member.

Check out some of the news coverage: (copy and paste the link to your browser).

- WKRN - Nashville Channel 2, ABC:

http://www.wkrn.com/global/video/flash/popupplayer.asp?ClipID1=3752477&h1=Big%20Kenny%20jams%20with%20elementary%20kids&vt1=v&at1=Entertainment&d1=90300&LaunchPageAdTag=Search%20Results&activePane=info&rnd=65391896


- WSMV - Nashville Channel 4, NBC:

http://www.wsmv.com/video/19443367/index.html


Til Next time... KEEP ON ROCKIN'!

Sincerely,

Keith Hejna
Little Kids Rock™
Public Relations Assistant
T: 973.746.8248
F: 973.746.8240
www.littlekidsrock.org
www.littlekidsrock.tv

Last month, Slash of Velvet Revolver and Guns 'N Roses fame visited Belvedere Middle School in East L.A.. He donated guitars, fielded questions, and led a jam session with the kids, who had been practicing several Slash songs in the weeks leading up to the event without the knowledge of the lead guitarist's impending visit.

Check out some of the media coverage we received:

- Rolling Stone Magazine - Pg. 30:
- http://www.rollingstone.com/photos/gallery/27183553 /random_notes_the_dead_prince_sl/photo/5


- The Performing Songwriter:
- http://www.performingsongwriter.com/pages/blogs/blog.cfm?BlogID=5&StartAt=11


- CNN:
- http://www.littlekidsrock.org/SlashVisit.html

'Til next time, keep on rockin!

--
Little Kids Rock
www.littlekidsrock.org
www.littlekidsrock.tv

Pictures:

• Slash with the kids (JPG)
• Slash (JPG)

Hi Friends of Little Kids Rock,


As you know, Little Kids Rock transforms children's lives by restoring and revitalizing music education in our nation's public schools. We are happy to say that we just held our largest single teacher training ever in Dallas Texas last week. We trained a total of 58 teachers and equipped them with 900 brand new instruments and they are going to help us reach over 6,000 students in Dallas this year!

Check out what the Dallas Morning News had to say about us - http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/DN-music_28met.ART.Central.Edition1.26e893a.html

Our goal this year is to purchase and place 8,000 brand new instruments into our schools around the country. We have already placed 6,500 so far. If we reach our goal of 8,000, we will have DOUBLED the number of instruments we gave away just last year.

Please help us to reach our goal of purchasing an additional 1,500 instruments this year. It's back to school time and our kids need your support more than ever!


Thanks for your interest in our kids and our work!

The Team at Little Kids Rock

Pictures:

• Dallas_teachers_in_class.jpg (JPG)
• dallas_unloading_keyboards.jpg (JPG)

What if we told you that by making an additional donation of just $10 or more you could help Little Kids Rock win an additional FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS to serve more kids? We are participating in a challenge grant that we think we can win. The Case Foundation is giving prizes of $50,000 to the four nonprofits who get the most unique donations through an online widget. Here is a link to our widget (also below): http://givingchallenge.globalgiving.com/dy/registry/ag.html?regid=671&cmd=prevfund


Please consider making another gift to help us win! Also, it would really help us if you would consider doing any of the following:
1.   Email this link to your friends, family or social network
2.   Get a widget for your blog profile or website
3.   Share or save a link to this fundraiser on social networking sites.

You can get directions on how to do all of this by clicking on the link mentioned above.

Thank you for helping us put music back where it belongs…in our schools!

Links:

• Little Kids Rock
• LKR TV
• Little Kids Rock Widget

Hey Rockin’ Supporters!

This year was a spectacular success thanks to supporters like you. Thanks to the generous donations that you have made to Little Kids Rock through Global Giving we have been able to reach thousands of new students, by bringing free musical instruments and lessons to children in our public schools.

In 2007, Little Kids Rock opened new chapters in Atlanta, DC, Philadelphia and Trenton, New Jersey. Due to your generosity, thousands of students in these cities will have the gift of music in their lives, a gift that has the real potential to bring about lasting change.

This past year, Little Kids Rock students made appearances on Nickelodeon, MTV, HGTV and a host of other news outlets. They jammed with some of music’s biggest celebrities, opened up sporting events, and even played for city mayors!

If you would like to see video footage of some of the thousands of kids we are reaching across the country, visit www.littlekidsrock.tv. While you are there, explore some of the free video lessons that we post there for our students. Also, be sure to check out Little Kids Rock on iTunes U, Apple’s free educational component to its wildly popular iTunes platform, where Little Kids Rock became the #1 most popular educational program.

At Little Kids Rock, we still have plenty of work ahead of us. In 2008, we plan on bringing our program to many more deserving public school students. Your donations will help us launch new programs for five cities in 2008 (Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Jersey City and Tampa). We need your continued support to meet our ambitious goals of rocking the lives of 20,000 students in the coming year. We need to raise an additional $150,000 before the end of this calendar year to do so and we need your help to get there. A gift of any amount will make a difference!

Links:

• Little Kids Rock
• Little Kids Rock TV
• Little Kids Rock on iTunes

Pictures:

• Ziggy Marley with Little Kids Rock Student (JPG)
• Little Kids Rock newest group of teachers in Philly (JPG)
• Little Kids Rock Student performing live at The House of Blues i (JPG)

Little Kids Rock launched a new chapter in Philadelphia in April! Twenty public school teachers were trained to provide music instruction "the Little Kids Rock way" at a workshop held during the weekend of April 28th. These newly trained Music Mentors will provide music instruction for up to 600 students. What a great group of teachers! The energy remained high for the duration of the workshop. Our success was confirmed by the number of teachers who lingered at the conclusion of the workshop to continue discussions and practice concepts learned. One teacher left the classroom with this comment, "What an amazing program. The trainers made everyone feel so comfortable. It was a wonderful learning experience!"

Now, Philadelphia is awaiting its first set of Little Kids Rock classes. These teachers are enthusiastically preparing their class schedules and eagerly anticipating their instrument orders. 100 guitars have been secured for this project to date. Classes will commence in September.

Pictures:

• Philadelphia Teachers Rock! (JPG)

We've recently posted two new videos about Little Kids Rock, including interviews with the students we're working with.

Links:

• A 3 minute LKR documentary
• A 30-second preview of LKR