Guitar & Accessories Marketing Association (GAMA) is one of 21 recipients selected to receive grant support from The NAMM Foundation. The funding will allow GAMA to continue to offer participatory music programs that increase exposure to music making and its myriad benefits to school music educators throughout North America. The NAMM Foundation annually allocates $500,000 in funding to support innovative music-learning programs, with the goal of expanding access to active music making.
“NAMM Member support through participation at the NAMM Shows and membership in the association allow the NAMM Foundation to provide funding to worthy community–based music-making organizations,” said Mary Luehrsen, executive director of the NAMM Foundation. “We are honored to support this important program as together we work to expand opportunities for all persons, at every age to know the joys and benefits of making music.”
GAMA’s Teaching Guitar Workshops train hundreds of school music educators to start classroom guitar programs every year. As a result, 1.28 million young people have received guitar instruction in school.
“Thanks to the NAMM Foundation’s investment, more than 3,000 school music educators have trained at GAMA’s Teaching Guitar Workshops,” said Robert Sulkow, GAMA’s executive director. “Through the Teaching Guitar Workshops, GAMA is bolstering school music, helping young people become music makers, and investing in a robust market for the guitar-products industry.”
This grant is a portion of the National Association of Music Merchant's (NAMM) annual multimillion-dollar reinvestment into the music products industry. These funds help to provide access to innovative, collaborative programs for all segments of the population. Since 1994, the NAMM Foundation has championed worthy music-making programs around the world with more than 14.2 million dollars in grant-making support.
