The Got Strings? Program was created to offer students in the Ojai Unified School District an opportunity to experience playing a stringed instrument at no cost to their families or to the school.

Here’s how it works: 

Each student in a sixth grade classroom is loaned a free violin.  The whole class, along with the teacher, is then given free group lessons twice a week during the regular school day.  Every student who then enrolls in the strings class at Matilija Junior High, is loaned a free instrument by the Ojai Youth Symphony for as long as they continue to study strings in the public schools.

The Got Strings? Program began in the Spring of 2005 with the goal of developing a strings class at Matilija Junior High by focusing on the elementary ages as a feeder program.  Both sixth grade classes at Meiners Oaks Elementary School have now participated in Got Strings? and nearly 70% of these students have continued with strings at Matilija.  As a result of the Got Strings? Program and in fewer than 18 months, Matilija has added both a beginning and advanced string class as part of the curriculum. 

The Ojai Youth Symphony’s Got Strings? Program was recently awarded a grant from the Gould Family Foundation to purchase enough violins for the 2006-2007 school year and the Julius Gius Foundation for instruments for 2007-2008.  Along with a previous  grant from the Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation, the Ojai Youth Symphony will  be loaning 165 instruments to students in the Ojai Unified School District by the Spring of 2008.

With the start of school in the Fall of 2007 and as a result of the continued interest from Got Strings? alumni, Nordhoff High School will offer its first ever string orchestra class.
 
Your tax deductible donation of $100 will buy this community a violin and give a child the opportunity to discover a new  world.  For more information, call the Ojai Youth Symphony at 649-8086.