Sacramento Blues in the Schools

Give a Child Their First Guitar String, Their First Downbeat, Their First Song

Picture a classroom where a kid who's never touched an instrument suddenly gets to hold a guitar for the first time. Their fingers fumble over the strings. The sound isn't pretty yet. But their eyes light up — because for the first time, they're not just listening to music. They're making it.
That moment is happening right now, in schools across Sacramento, because of **Blues in the Schools (BITS)** — and it's happening because people like you decided it should.

Bringing the Blues Into the Classroom

Blues in the Schools is the Sacramento Blues Society's commitment to a simple idea: **every child deserves the chance to discover music, regardless of what their family can afford.** Through BITS, professional musicians and dedicated mentors go directly into Sacramento classrooms to teach kids the history, the rhythm, and the raw emotional power of the blues — the music that gave rise to jazz, rock, soul, and nearly everything we listen to today.
For many students, this is the first time anyone has ever handed them an instrument and said, *"Try it. You can do this."*

More Than a Music Lesson

BITS isn't just about teaching scales and chord progressions. It's about:
- **Cultural history** — helping students understand the blues as a living American art form, born from struggle and resilience- **Hands-on instruction** — real instruments, real mentors, real practice- **Confidence and discipline** — the kind that comes from sticking with something hard until it clicks- **A path forward** — for students who show real promise, BITS connects them to deeper support, including instrument loans and mentoring, so a spark of interest can grow into a lifelong skill

Why Your Donation Matters

Music education is too often the first thing cut when school budgets tighten. For a lot of kids in our community, BITS may be the only exposure they'll ever get to hands-on music instruction — and for some, it will be the moment that changes the direction of their life.
Every dollar you give helps us:
- Send professional musicians and mentors into more classrooms- Provide instruments for students to learn on- Keep this program free and accessible to every school and every student, regardless of income
## Be Part of the Next Generation of Blues
The blues has survived for over a century because someone always steps up to pass it on. Right now, that someone is you.

**Your gift to Blues in the Schools doesn't just fund a program — it hands a child an instrument, a mentor, and a reason to believe their voice matters.**
**Donate today, and help us keep the blues — and the kids who will carry it forward — alive in Sacramento's classrooms.**
*Blues in the Schools (BITS) is a program of the Sacramento Blues Society, bringing musicians and mentors into local classrooms to teach the history and craft of blues music to students of all ages.*