Soldier Songs and Voices Northwest Arkansas

We wish to continue providing free guitar and songwriting lessons for vets. We want to continue providing veterans in need a guitar and accessories. We do this in order to give veterans a positive outlet for the problems they are experiencing due to their military experiences. As the VA mental health therapists have told us, we want to give them a reason to get off the couch and out of the house and have some positive social contact and activity. We would also like to be able to assist veterans with expenses to attend the SSV Reveille Songwriting Retreat in Texas each year. We would also like to help pay expenses for professional songwriters to provide us with local songwriting workshops.

We have submitted a grant through the Network for Good. We have a donation button on our Facebook page and website. We solicit in the community for instrument donations and have performed a house concert to raise funds. We partner with the local VA Hospital to find and engage veterans in need of our services. We perform at a variety of veterans events in the community as outreach to veterans. We provide weekly guitar instruction at two sites on the VA Hospital Campus and one monthly songwriting class there, as well. We also meet monthly as a community of veterans/musicians in order to provide our veteran/students with the opportunity to be involved with a musical community.

We are a small but enthusiastic group of amateur, semi-professional and professional veterans/musicians. We have developed a fantastic relationship with the local VA Hospital which provides us with instructional space and opportunities to perform for vets. We are developing a donor base to help us sustain our activities. We are also one of eleven chapters in the United States and we derive benefits from being part of that larger community, not least of which is access to a yearly songwriting retreat hosted by the national chapter. This retreat is pairs veterans with nationally touring musicians for a week and is free to all veterans.

We have given forty guitars to vets so far in 2019. We provided almost 400 man hours of instruction in 2018. We performed for 13 separate veteran related events in 2018. We have two instructional settings and groups at the VA that meet weekly. We play weekly at the VA Mental Health psychiatric unit and for many veteran related events in the community. We are implementing a once monthly songwriting class also located at the VA Hospital.