Rawkstars History

Before the beginning, a bunch of my musician friends got together, played softball, drank beer, laughed a lot and realized just how lucky we were to have music in our lives. And each other.

I saw first hand the pure love everyone had in their hearts and how music brought us all together, like a chosen family.  It was the seed of that day which gave birth to Rawkstars.

October 23rd, 2004 I received an email from our first student looking for lessons.  His name was Kevin.  He was shy, and wanted to learn guitar.  We set him up with lessons and he spent several years studying, before moving on to attend Boston University.

I developed a friendship with Kevin and his mom and they’ve  participated in many of our events over the years.

I still have Kevin’s original email on my office wall, so I can see it everyday.

It takes a community to support our students.  Today I’d like to shine the light on 3 of our cornerstone partners.

South Shore Music, Rick’s Music, TJ’S Music are some of our oldest and most trusted partners and we’re always adding more.

In March of 2006, we started our first group guitar class in partnership with the Boys & Girls Clubs of America.

We were contacted by West End House, a hundred year old club located in the heart of Allston about adding music classes for their after-school program.

Prospect Hill Academy is a charter school located in Cambridge.  They prepare inner city youth for success in college through innovative programming, creativity and responsible citizenship.

Rawkstars funded and staffed an after school guitar class with them back in 2010.  We hosted about 15 students 2x per week, helping them build self-confidence and foster self-expression through the arts.

In March of 2011, we met with the folks at William Carter School in Boston.  The school supports kids with intensive disabilities and complex health needs with innovative approaches to learning.

Since the kids are non-verbal, wheelchair bound and without the  dexterity to play guitar, we purchased them a series of hand instruments.  Drums, shakers, keyboards and other tactile items they could use to make music were donated to the classroom along with other music supplies.

Orchard Gardens is a K-8 Pilot School in Roxbury that serves hundreds of non-English speaking kids.  They developed a maximally inclusive program for students with Autism.  Their arts programming has been recognized as a turnaround model by the President’s Committee, and was visited by Barack and Michelle Obama.

They had two high achieving music students who got accepted into the prestigious Boston Arts Academy High School, despite learning exclusively on borrowed instruments.  Intermediate band instruments can cost 10-15x what a starter guitar costs and are often out of reach for low income families.

Rawkstars stepped in to donate a saxophone and clarinet to these two boys as well as a drum set and percussion items for the larger school band program.

Music isn’t about taking lessons.  It’s not about practice.  It’s about sharing a piece of yourself.  About being creative, vulnerable and passionate.  It makes everything around it more beautiful.

Performing music has become a core tenant of all our programs.

Watch the video here!

In 2015, we donated several instruments and provided a $1,500 grant to @girls rock ri, now known as RIOT Rhode Island.

Girls Rock! Rhode Island is a volunteer-based non-profit that uses music creation and critical thinking to foster empowerment, collaborative relationships, and the development of healthy identities in girls, women, trans, and gender non-conforming individuals.

After 4 years of running the historic Falmouth Road Race, we decided to start our own event. 

51 runners connected at D.W. Field’s Park in Brockton to celebrate and raise awareness for music education.

We hosted a 5k/10k for people of all shapes and sizes.  It brought together like-minded friends and volunteers in the positive, community-oriented way that Rawkstars has become synonymous with.

Rawkstars had it’s first opportunity to develop programming for incarcerated young men. We partnered with Middlesex House of Corrections to launch this new program to great success. It’s one of our proudest accomplishments.

Huge thanks to the crew at Band Gig School of Music.  Over the years they’ve held many student concerts and donated the proceeds to Rawkstars.

It’s another way the collective generosity of our community partners makes a positive impact on the life of a young music student and their family.

Rawkstars celebrated our 20th anniversary, and we couldn’t have gone a single year without the support of our Fan Club and partners. YOU are Rawkstars!

If you aren’t involved with us yet, won’t you join the Rawk Family?

In an effort to leverage our deep experience and network, we’re now bringing our programs into community youth centers looking to develop a music program but without the resources to do so.

In conjunction with Boys & Girls Club of Marshfield and Levitate Foundation, we successfully launched our Band Together program to great reviews and are actively expanding our network in this area, reaching more kids than ever.