Hundreds of Clark County School District students are getting the gift of music.
Guitars, drums and keyboards are being delivered all over the valley, thanks to a new initiative called Band Together. 13 Action News teamed up with Dollar Loan Center to make it happen.
The instruments arrived at the CCSD warehouse on a 52-foot freight truck and now the 10-month rollout begins.
"First of all, it was kind of stunning. Because who is willing to bring a truckload of stuff in and donate it?" Rick McEnaney said. "And once we got here and we saw what everything was we were looking at the number of kids who we are going to be able to positively influence with this is just amazing."
Dollar Loan Center donated more than $250,000 in musical equipment with the sole purpose of strengthening the district's fine arts program.
"Kids go to school, it's a lot of pressure," said Chuck Brennan with Dollar Loan Center. "You can be an outcast but you get behind a drum kit, learn to play guitar. Now you are the cool kids. You hang out with other kids. You form a little band. It's really life changing."
The Good Morning Las Vegas team dropped off nearly 100 acoustic guitars for the kickoff. Yasmeen Hassan and Beth Fisher were at Lied STEM Academy where they got to hear some of the kids play.
This is one of the classes receiving instruments as part of BAND TOGETHER. pic.twitter.com/qgDRWGY1xw
— Yasmeen Hassan (@YasmeenTV) October 8, 2018
Problem is there are not enough guitars to go around and this delivery will change that.
"I've been trying to build more guitars every single year. We've been fundraising, begging, students have been asking for donations," said Daniel Schantol, guitar director. "And it's been difficult to build up guitars we need. Hearing about this amazing program was just a blessing to us. Knowing we might be able to have guitars for every single student."
Justin Bruce and Dayna Roselli delivered to the Basic Academy of International Studies.
The Good Morning Las Vegas team handed out guitars to local @ClarkCountySch today. #BandTogether is an initiative we are proud of @ktnv. There’s a lot more where this came from thanks to Dollar Loan Center. More equipment coming over the next 10 months! pic.twitter.com/onEXZAduA1
— Dayna Roselli (@DaynaRoselli) October 8, 2018
"We've had some students who we get at the end of the year and their parents have come up to me and said thank you so much for having this class, the reason my student comes to school was to take guitar," said Peter Federowicz, guitar teacher at Basic Academy. "This is what keeps them coming on a day they would have found alternative activities to do intead of coming and that gets them to math and science classes and makes them come here and stay through the day."
More equipment remains to be sorted at the warehouse, including electric guitars, bongos, microphones, speakers, speaker stands and studio mixers. CCSD's team will be sorting it and 13 Action News will be making more deliveries every month.