Mr. Holland's Opus Foundation And Eddie Van Halens Guitars

Mr. Holland's Opus Foundation was not only a hit movie but is a legit non profit organization that supports music education in public schools.  As with all non profits and as with all public schools funds are low.  It's not a good time to be a good guy when demand is up and resources are low.

But if you get a bit of star power- well things can brighten up.  Eddie Van Halen donated 75 electric guitars to the foundation to be distributed in to Los Angeles schools.  Imagine learning your first tune on Eddies old guitar.  Pretty impressive and very generous for the Van Halen hero to donate.  Now of course he is quite financially secure so the strain there is not the issue but rather by donating he has fired up publicity for this outstanding organization.  This could cause the 'I wanna be like Eddie' effect encouraging other musicians to do the same.  The enthusiasm of the act is also note worthy as evident in this quote:

"Music is the universal language. It has the ability to transcend and convey every human emotion that exists without saying a word,” said Eddie. “Music kept me off the streets and out of trouble and gave me something that was mine that no one could take away from me. Music education and families are dealing with the economic times, and I wanted to help them. If I can help a kid discover a liking, or even a passion for music in their life, then that's a wonderful thing. Music has provided a good life for me and hopefully it can help make life better for others with this donation."

Felice Mancini, the executive director of The Foundation said the following about the program, its mission, and the spotlight Van Halen helped shine on their cause, to the LA Examiner:

“In fact, this is funny, because this is how a lot of people find us and start good, strong, happy relationships with us,” explained Mancini. “Eddie’s management company knew that Eddie wanted to give these guitars away. He didn’t want to sell them, he didn’t want to auction them, he wanted them to go to schools — to kids who would actually play them. They did a search and we came up. We usually do if somebody types in “music charity” or whatever. They called and said, “We have a client who is interested in doing this,” and they talked to us for a long time. They were just doing their due diligence. Eddie wanted it to be a credible charity where he knew that his wishes would be honored. We had several conversations back and forth. This went on over a period of months; it wasn’t a “pick up the phone and it happened.” They did not tell us who it was until they were sure that they liked us and that we were the ones. And we found out and we thought, Whoa! OK! Wonderful! We found some schools for them and they said, “We can make this announcement.” The timing with the tour — it wasn’t all that strategic. It just happened that the stuff came out when it did because Eddie was very busy rehearsing. He didn’t really have the time to do it before, so we had to wait until he was ready. We just wanted the guitars to get to the schools during the school year so that they could use them. Like you said, it was like a perfect storm, and we couldn’t believe how this thing kind of blew up. It was really wonderful.”