The Newport Festivals Foundation, who run and operate the Newport Folk and Jazz Festivals, bestowed another major local instrument donation Thursday at three local schools in the Newport school district including Pell Elementary, Thompson Middle School and Rogers High School.
The donation reception was held at Thompson Middle School yesterday where $15,000 worth of instruments were donated to students across the three schools. Since the program launched in 2019, the foundation has donated a total of 636 instruments to community schools.
For more information, please visit www.NewportFestivalsFoundation.org.
About Newport Festivals Foundation:
Newport Festivals Foundation is a 501(c)(3) profit organization with a mission to create moments of hope through the power of music and community. Best known for producing the Newport Jazz and Newport Folk Festivals, the Foundation spends the rest of the year working to create the next generation of musicians through music education and artist relief programs.
Thanks to the support of our community, NFF offers music programs in our own backyard of Newport, Rhode Island, including free private music lessons, instrument donations to public schools, assembly programs, and summer camps.
Nationally, NFF partners with festival artists to support music education programs they’re passionate about. Since 2018, the Artist Gives initiative has provided over 197 grants to music education programs in over 35 states, including instruments for public schools, funding for music instruction workshops for Veterans, Girls Rock Summer camps, after-school music lessons for children with learning disabilities, and more.
In response to the pandemic, the foundation established the Newport Festivals Musician Relief Fund (MRF) to provide financial relief to musicians in our Folk & Jazz communities experiencing a loss of income as a result of COVID-19. Resources from NFF and donations from individuals, foundations, and corporations have allowed the MRF to help over 602 musicians since April 1, 2020.
For more information on the education initiatives of Newport Festivals Foundation, please visit www.newportfestivals.org.
