GITC 2024: a Year of Caring, Growth & Creativity!

Dear Friend,
 
Season’s greetings to you from GITC. Th​ank you for taking time to read this little letter. I am especially grateful for the kindness and support you’ve bestowed upon our nonprofit, making it possible to provide a record-breaking year of service. Thanks to you, we’ve been able to increase the reach and depth of our programs bringing musical learning to students from preschool through high school.
 
Since 2023, ninety-seven classrooms in San Diego and L.A. have participated in capacity-building classroom residencies during the school day. We’ve sustained year-round online learning for teachers at every grade level in 40 states, and led in-person instruction across 5 regions of California including presenting at three statewide conferences. Our After-school and summer Strummers Clubs have been going strong, serving students directly whose classrooms teachers might not have trained with us yet. This creates greater equity in participating schools. Additionally, our work in Adaptive Music has grown, equipping greater numbers of special educators and music teachers to support student learning in moderate-severe special education.
 
Innovation requires champions to succeed. Thank you for helping when it counted the most! Last year, Federal funding for childcare programs was lost and many child care centers and programs closed. Your donations along with a grant from the San Diego Women’s Foundation helped us launch the GITC ECE Initiative, training 226 ECE teachers throughout San Diego County in intensive workshops. 663 more early childhood educators around the U.S. also participating in special training through our free, ongoing, virtual classes. With your assistance, GITC supplied over 200 childcare programs and classrooms with student ukuleles! We’re excited to share this initiative has now gained traction, receiving grants from the California Arts Council and the Cushman Foundation to carry it forward. Thank you, educators for participating with GITC! Thank you, generous donors, for funding this effort. Together we are making a difference.

Also, thanks to your generous support, GITC was able to fund instruction for over 2100 K-12 educators and support staff with specific 8-week courses and workshops in guitar, ukulele, singing, songwriting for learning, classroom implementation strategies, literacy and math through music, and very importantly, social-emotional learning (SEL) through music. Teachers have overwhelmingly reported witnessing improvements in their students’ abilities to get along with each other, identify and regulate their emotions, express needs constructively, and focus their attention on learning. These gains are significant, and will help America’s students catch up. 2024 marks a 67% increase in the number of teachers served by Guitars and Ukes in the Classroom. 
 
In 2024, to meet the demand for our services, we’ve welcomed new faculty members, and also encouraged established faculty members to step into leadership.  Guitar Club leader Dan Decker has become an inspiring coach for others on the faculty. Sharon DuBois and Reagan Duncan have both begun presenting GITC’s work at state conferences, bringing energy, joy, and effective methods to teachers from remote and rural areas of California as well as large urban centers.  

Reagan’s story is a shining example of how and why GITC has been growing steadily since 2000. She began taking classes with us in 2020, engaging her kindergarten students in virtual learning at the start of the pandemic. She proved an adept songwriter for teaching literacy skills, penning catchy songs that many teachers now sing every day in their own classrooms! Once in-person teaching resumed, Reagan launched successful after-school uke clubs at Maryland Elementary, in Vista, CA.  Then she joined our faculty in 2023, training teachers to start their own after-school uke clubs, and to teach SEL through music. In early 2024, she was asked by her district to teach in-person GITC workshops. We also invited her to present to teachers from around the world at the international NAMM Show, and at other conferences. She is a cherished member of the team, inspiring others lead the way!
 
GITC’s train-the-trainer model is designed to hold steady in hard times. Bruce Robbins explains why here. Given the incoming administration’s plan to decrease funding for public education and eliminate the Department of Education, GITC must persevere. If you believe that every child deserves to learn to make music, this is an important moment to contribute. Your tax-deductible gift this month will empower us reach the teachers and students who without GITC, would not have access to learning through music. This includes students in moderate-severe special education classes, as well as medically fragile, physically challenged, homebound, and hospitalized students who learn with their teachers and parents.

GITC’s train-the-trainer model is designed to hold steady in hard times. Bruce Robbins explains why here. ​

---

Given the incoming administration’s plan to decrease funding for public education and eliminate the Department of Education, GITC must persevere. If you believe that every child deserves to learn to make music, this is an important moment to contribute. Your tax-deductible gift this month will empower all of us to reach the teachers and students who without GITC, would not have access to learning through music. This includes students in moderate-severe special education classes, as well as medically fragile, physically challenged, homebound, and hospitalized students who learn with their teachers and parents.

---

Your donation will support our small nonprofit to continue providing all of these services, pivoting as we go to meet challenges that lie ahead. Every gift helps. Now through December 31st, your contribution will be matched by GITC board members so that our 501 (c)3 may continue to support teachers, staff, and students to imbue learning with passion, peace, kindness, and beauty through the power of making music. Giving to GITC is truly a vote for education, the arts, and for hope, and promise for our children and youth.
 
This year, you can make one simple donation here, and let us know if you wish it to support a particular GITC program! https://www.guitarsintheclassroom.org/donate.html

If you'd prefer to contribute with a check and note, that's great! It will go right into a locked box. Please mail us safely at:
GITC
1286 University Ave #389
San Diego, CA 92103

We also appreciate other kinds of donations, and would be happy to speak with you if you want to donate an instrument, stocks. or time. Please reach out to Gail Wingfield at [email protected] or call us at 619-840-1010 anytime. 

---

Thank you for seeing GITC through a wonderful year of caring and growth. Whether you took a class or taught one, provided a residency or participated in one, got students, teachers, colleagues, or friends involved, or volunteered with us as a Tuning Angel, you are a very important part of this supportive community, and your efforts are significant! 

On behalf of our faculty, staff, board of directors, and volunteers, I wish you health,  energy, resilience, self-care, and a new year filled with friendship music. See you in 2025!

With love,
​

---