VH1 and NBC News' 'Today' Collect More Than 3500 Instruments

Back - Index - Submissions - - What is RSS? Date: Jun 22, 2000 Source: PRNewswire Submitted By: Gina VH1 and NBC News' 'Today' Collect More Than 3500 Instruments and Contributions Worth Over $2.5 Million During 'VH1 Save The Music Today!' Week President Bill Clinton Appeared in Support of Music Education Updated 4:34 PM ET June 21, 2000 NEW YORK, June 21 /PRNewswire/ -- As a result of record individual and corporate donations, more than 3500 instruments were collected nationwide during the "VH1 Save The Music Today!" week, June 12-16. The instruments, when combined with generous corporate contributions, have an estimated value of over $2.5 million. Corporate contributions were made by leading musical instrument manufacturers Fender, Yamaha, Selmer, Steinway and Taylor. VH1 and NBC News' "Today" teamed up for the second consecutive year to present "VH1 Save The Music Today!," a week long, on-air instrument drive benefiting the VH1 Save The Music Foundation, which took place from Monday, June 12, through Friday, June 16. The VH1 Save The Music Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the quality of education in America's public schools by restoring music programs in cities across the U.S. Throughout "VH1 Save The Music Today!" week, people brought musical instruments to the sidewalks outside the "Today" show studio at Rockefeller Center for collection daily. Celebrity guests A.J. McLean of Backstreet Boys/Johnny No Name, Goo Goo Dolls, Darius Rucker of Hootie and the Blowfish, Mariah Carey and Bon Jovi assisted in collecting the instruments and talked about the importance of VH1 Save the Music and music education in our public schools. Also during the week, instrument drives were conducted in a dozen cities across the U.S. Borders Books and Music served as a collection point for new and used musical instruments in 309 locations nationwide. A donation totaling $1 million worth of instruments was made by Fender Musical Instruments, the largest commitment the company has ever made to any one program, and the largest ever single donation to the VH1 Save The Music Foundation. The highlight of the week was the appearance on Friday, June 16, of President Bill Clinton, who said, "Learning improves in school environments where there are comprehensive music programs. It increases the ability of young people to do math. It increases the ability of young people to read. And, most important of all, it's a lot of fun. We need to keep supporting VH1's Save the Music program." In addition, President Clinton, Billy Joel and Brian McKnight appeared on behalf of VH1 Save the Music and Time Warner Cable of New York to donate $5 million of musical instruments over five years to restore music education in more than 200 New York City schools. By the end of the year 2000, VH1 Save The Music and its affiliate partners will have donated over $10 million worth of musical instruments to public schools. The program will be in 40 cities serving 500 schools and will impact the lives of 200,000 children. VH1 Save The Music was recently honored with this year's prestigious George Foster Peabody Award for broadcast and cable excellence, presented in a ceremony on May 22 at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City. The campaign also recently won two Beacon Awards, presented by the Cable Television Public Affairs Association to honor excellence in public affairs throughout the cable industry. The VH1 Save The Music Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to restoring instrumental music programs in America's public schools, and to raising awareness of the positive impact that music participation has on students. Since its inception, the VH1 Save The Music Foundation has generated 350 new instrumental music programs in 30 cities and donated more than $6 million worth of musical instruments to public schools reaching more than 120,000 children. The national partner organizations of VH1 Save The Music include the National School Boards Association, U.S. Department of Education, Chief State School Officers Association, MENC-The National Association for Music Education, NAMM-International Music Products Association, the American Music Conference, and America's Promise-The Alliance for Youth. The national sponsors of "VH1 Save The Music" are Subaru and Tommy Hilfiger. VH1 produces and programs a wide variety of music-based series, specials, live events and acquisition-based programming that keeps viewers in touch with the music they love. VH1 is a registered trademark of MTV Networks, a unit of Viacom Inc. MTV Networks owns and operates the cable television programming services MTV: Music Television, MTV2, Nickelodeon/Nick at Nite, TV Land and VH1 as well as The Suite from MTV Networks, a package of ten digital services, all of which are trademarks of MTV Networks. MTV Networks also has joint ventures, licensing agreements and syndication deals whereby its programming can be seen worldwide. Contact: Martine Charles of VH1, 212-846-6752; or Todd Phillips of MTV Networks, 310-752-8075 Comment on this item. 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