Chuck Surack (center) and Believe in a Dream board chair Jamal Robinson (to his right), plus school officials, and students holding some of the 35 donated instruments.

MAY 5 I SWEETWATER I PHILANTHROPY
Sweetwater, Nonprofit Donate Instruments to Local Schools

Sweetwater founder and President, Chuck Surack, and his wife Lisa, recently partnered with the Fort Wayne, Indiana, nonprofit organization, Believe in a Dream, to donate 35 stringed instruments to 12 middle and high schools in the Fort Wayne community.

The instruments are estimated at a net worth of over $12,000.

Sweetwater has also donated $10,000 to support Believe in a Dream's mission to help struggling school orchestra programs by creating and promoting mass concerts involving as many as 13 schools, plus musicians from the Fort Wayne Philharmonic.

"I went to Wayne High School," Chuck Surack told a group of orchestra students receiving donated instruments at Northrop High School in Fort Wayne, Indiana (in a video on The Journal Gazette's website). "My music classes at Wayne are what really set me up for my life, frankly, at Sweetwater and with everything I've been able to do.

"The gift of music is so extraordinary. And when Jamal [Robinson, board chair of Believe in a Dream] came to me a couple years ago and explained the need for more instruments, I said, 'I can help.' I just loved what he was doing with Believe in a Dream, and I think it's so important that we have arts, not only in school, but in the rest of our lives."

sweetwater.com
biadinc.org