During the first week of school, Dave Hagan, an instrumental teacher, requested some musical equipment from the St. Louis Classical Guitar Society and Reaper, an audio software company, through email. Both organizations responded with donations totalling about $1,230 worth of equipment.

Hagan shared this information with the GCAA staff, stating that he received the donations simply by sending an email. After explaining the situation, he added a few extra thoughts.

“Everybody here knows the challenges we face in getting funding,” he said in an email he sent to the staff.. “If you are struggling to get the things you need, keep in mind that there are lots of people out there who are willing to help.”

According to Hagan, the issue began at the beginning of the year, when he became aware of his funding for the class.

“The year started and I found out I have a lot less funding to work with than I originally thought I did. The entire music department, we get a very small amount of money to pull from that is not close to what we need. So there are things that I have to have that we don’t have the funding for, ” he said. “And I went into panic mode. Like, I need all this stuff and school started and I don’t know how I’m gonna get this money.”

In this “panic mode,” Hagan decided to ask people for donations, given he did not have the money for them.

“I was like, maybe if I just ask somebody, they’ll help me out,” he said.

First, Hagan asked Bill Ash from the St. Louis Classical Guitar Society – the program has donated guitars to the Music Department in the past. Ash almost immediately responded by saying that the supplies would be brought in the next day.

“He brought everything on my list, for just basic supplies. Strings and foot rests and all kinds of stuff, and he just brought it by,” explained Hagan.

According to Hagan, the St. Louis Classical Guitar Society also paid for the online curriculum that he needed for the course.

“The Guitar Society brought twenty sets of strings, which is more than enough for my classroom set to replace all my strings, four electric tuners, a bunch of foot rests, and they covered the cost of my online curriculum license,” he said. “That’s about $450 worth of stuff, and all I did was send an e-mail.”

After receiving these donations, Hagan decided to try the same method with Reaper, in an attempt to obtain software that he needed for the class. They responded in  a similar way.

“I needed Reaper audio software for my music technology classes, so I sent an e-mail to the company,” said Hagan. “They gave me a class set of licences. That’s $780 worth of licensing fees, and all I did was send an e-mail.”

Hagan expressed in the emails he sent to these companies how the equipment will impact the class and the students.

“I basically told our story, said what I’m trying to do, and what we do here at the school. I was like, ‘I really wanna use your product, I really want the students to have that opportunity but we just don’t have the funds for it,” he said. “We wouldn’t really have a class without it, so (the donations)  allow it to exist, essentially.”

Hagan also told the companies, “some of the things we do and the programs we have, and then I talk about, specifically, what stuff we need and why we need it. I just kinda talk about basically how much it’ll impact what we do here, as far as student engagement.”

And as classes have started, these donations have been in use and are already impacting Hagan’s students.