Most people donate clothes and food to the needy during the holidays, but Jim Normandy, owner of Normandy Guitars, is donating, well, guitars.
“We’re giving the gift of music. Give someone a fish and feed them for a day but teach them to fish and you’ll feed them for a lifetime,” says Normandy.
The beneficiaries are the teens at HOST Youth and Family Program, which shelters homeless, runaway and abandoned kids.
“They don’t have any instruments of any kind, and instruments are cathartic, it’s good therapy for them. It’s an avenue to get their emotions out as opposed to throwing a rock through a window,” says Normandy, who was approached by a proactive staff member at HOST asking for the instrument donations.
“I said, absolutely, and gave a whole bunch of them, and I asked customers if they had guitars they wanted to donate too. So many people have old guitars sitting in their closets that they haven’t touched in twenty years! They’ve been coming in and donating and I have nine more guitars I’m ready to give away.”
Normandy hopes the kids can personally own and keep the guitars as opposed to all of them staying at the center. “I want to encourage them to give them to the kids,” says Normandy. He wants to continue taking donations and expand the donations to other local programs as well.
He is also planning on setting up a free weekly guitar class for HOST kids, which will start at the beginning of the year. Donations of electric, bass, and acoustic guitars and amplifiers are requested.
