College football and elementary school music don’t typically mesh.
But the College Football Championship is creating some sweet tunes at Crestwood Elementary in Tampa.
- Teacher at Crestwood took music program's needs to donorschoose.org
- Every Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco request on site funded
- Funding part of "Extra Yard for Teachers Initiative"
Over the years, the music teachers at Crestwood have been dealing with quite a few sour equipment notes. Problems like broken Xylophones and not enough guitars have hampered their efforts to teach their classes.
“It’s a frustrating situation,” said music teacher Robert Constable, who told us students as well as teachers are frustrated, as music education is a big deal in the high-needs school.
“I can’t put into words how important this is because for a lot of students -- this is their thing,” said music teacher Nate Strawbridge.
In August, Strawbridge took his classroom’s needs to a popular funding website – Donorschoose.org – to ask for help from the community.
On September 23, Strawbridge got a big surprise.
The Tampa Bay Sports Commission and the National College Playoff Foundation funded every request on Donorschoose.org for teachers in Hillsborough, Pasco and Pinellas.
It’s their way to celebrate the College Football Championship coming to Tampa in January.
As part of the "Extra Yard for Teachers Initiative," the two organizations donated $274,000 to Bay area classrooms. In total, 377 Bay area teachers received funding for their projects.
At Crestwood Elementary, that means teachers can ditch the broken instruments and buy new ones.
“Every fourth grade student will have a guitar when they come to music class and that is huge,” said Constable. “That is huge. We can get twice as much done.”
Although most of the people in the Crestwood music room aren’t interested in college sports, they’re grateful for the gift.
“Thank you, because not a lot of people would think about doing that,” said 10-year-old Diosmary Barreiro.