Hungry For Music Fundraiser Provides Instruments For Kids
SABR member Jeff Campbell, co-chair of the Baseball and the Arts Research Committee, is asking for your help to fund a CD project whose proceeds will purchase new musical instruments for kids who can’t afford them.
Campbell is the founder of the Washington, D.C.-based Hungry For Music, which has made it possible for nearly 5,000 children to participate in music programs since 1994. One source of HFM’s funding is a series of baseball song collections called “Diamond Cuts.” Artists such as Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Paul Simon have contributed songs, and pianist George Winston has supported each of the 12 releases with a song on each, as well as performing several benefit concerts for the program.
A $1 donation to Hungry For Music will entitle you to a free download of a song from Diamond Cuts’s 12th release, “Diamond Cuts: It Ain’t Over Til It’s Over”:
- “Phenomenon,” by David Kitchen (about Stephen Strasburg)
- “24 to 80”, by Ronny Elliott (about Willie Mays)
- “The Amazing Gary Mays”, by Jud Caswell and Erik Balkey
- “Letter to Harry”, by Chuck Brodsky
- “Opening Day”, by Peter Cooper
For a donation of $15 or more, you will receive a free download of all five songs, plus Diamond Cuts’ “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” 100th anniversary commemorative CD, with 30 different versions of baseball’s famous anthem. Other donor gifts include the complete 12-volume series of Diamond Cuts, a Nolan Ryan tribute CD and a VIP tour of the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.
Click here to donate to the Hungry For Music fundraiser, “Diamond Cuts: It Ain’t Over Til It’s Over”.
“When Hungry for Music first started, because we were such a new organization with no track record, none of the foundations or corporations would give us funding,” Campbell said. “One of the ways we raised money was by enlisting local artists to contribute their songs to CDs that we could sell to raise money”.
Supporters can also participate by visiting http://www.hungryformusic.com/music to vote for the last song to be included on the 12th installment of “Diamond Cuts: It Ain’t Over Til It’s Over.” Votes will be accepted until October 15.
Last year, Hungry for Music donated more than 500 musical instruments, a record. Recipients in 2011 have included the Junior Appalachian Musicians, the Intonation Workshop in Chicago, Roots of Music and Trumpets Not Guns in New Orleans, Bridges Across Borders in Mexico, and public school music programs in Austin, Texas, and Tucson, Arizona. In the Washington, D.C., area, donations have gone to the Nannie J. Lee Recreation Center in Alexandria, Takoma Park Elementary School, the Homeless Children’s Playtime Project in the District of Columbia, and to scores of individuals.
For more information, visit http://www.hungryformusic.com and Hungry For Music’s Facebook page, or contact Jeff Campbell for details.
Originally published: September 23, 2011. Last Updated: September 23, 2011.