Little Kids Rock is Named a Grant Recipient of The NAMM Foundation

NAMM Foundation grant will help support Modern Band Rockfest 2016 and Little Kids Rock-Philadelphia program evaluation.

The work of Little Kids Rock has been recognized with a generous grant from The NAMM Foundation. The grant will allow Little Kids Rock to present its 4th annual Modern Band Rockfest; Little Kids Rock’s national teacher conference and movement-building convention. A portion of the grant will also fund program evaluation efforts in support of Little Kids Rock-Philadelphia. Annually, The NAMM Foundation allocates $600,000 in funding to support music education programs to advance access, facilitate new initatives and to support the missions of organizations like Little Kids Rock. 

“Little Kids Rock continues to advance access to music education, and through their work, they are providing meaningful music making experiences” said Mary Luehrsen, executive director of the NAMM Foundation. “We are honored to support their mission and to help advance the opportunity for all people to enjoy the pleasure of music making.”

Modern Band Rockfest is the only national teacher conference focused on advancing Modern Band in the U.S. public school system. This year’s conference (July 19-22) will bring together more than 300 music teachers, district arts administrators, higher education leaders, and policy advocates from across the country to share ideas, develop new resources, and collaborate to advance the cause of Modern Band. See more athttp://www.littlekidsrock.org/modernbandrockfest2016. Currently, more than 240,000 students receive a Modern Band music education in more than 1,700 classrooms in 29 cities all across the country.

Since its inception in 1994, The NAMM Foundation’s annual grant program has donated more than $16 million in support to domestic and international music education programs, scientific research, advocacy and public service programs related to music making.  The grants are funded in part by donations from the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) and its 10,300 member companies worldwide.

About Little Kids Rock:

Little Kids Rock is a national nonprofit that is dedicated to unlocking children’s inner music makers by revitalizing music education in public schools. The organization partners with school districts to train public school teachers to run its innovative Modern Band curriculum and donates all of the accompanying instruments and resources necessary to teach popular music in a way that empowers students to experience instant achievement. Little Kids Rock started as a schoolteacher’s vision to give his students access to music education while diminishing budgets for the arts made that more and more difficult to do. What began as a single after-school guitar class has since expanded into a national movement that is bringing music lessons to more than 240,000 public school children due to the efforts of more than 1,700 teachers in 29 cities nationwide. To date, Little Kids Rock has served over 400,000 students.