Everyone’s obsession with their smartphones, the proverbial “black mirror,” is a bit much at times, but lately the devices have been music to our ears.

With a lot of help from U.S. Cellular and the Mobile Giving Foundation, we recently raised money for string replacement by asking folks to text “JOM” to a certain phone number. A lot of you did, and we’re grateful for that.

On all of the instruments we have out on loan to our kids there are 278 individual strings. That’s violin, viola, cello, bass, guitar, ukulele, electric guitar, electric bass. They get plucked, bowed, strummed, and whammied (yes, that’s a thing). Under that abuse, strings wear out and need replacing. Our goal was to raise $2,780, enough to buy fresh new strings for all our kids by their Spring Recital on May 5.

Despite the great public response, we didn’t quite hit our goal (we aim high). But imagine our surprise and delight when a group of students from a UT English class taught by Beth Meredith swooped in to make up the difference. How? They wrote a call to action, a media release, and scripted and shot a promo video aimed at raising the remaining funds needed for our “Strings for Spring” program. They posted everything on Indiegogo.com, a crowdfunding site. It’s in progress now, and it’s off to a good start. Find it at goo.gl/qtNx1a.

And, yes, you can view it on that shiny black screen in your pocket.

 

Click here to go to the top post.