2. Food for Strings

Don Tegeler, Tegeler Music Center, Clinton, Iowa

According to Tegeler, this is one of his most successful events every year. It’s a food drive where people bring in canned food to get their guitars re-stringed. Jeff Simmons of Watermelon Music held the first Food for Strings event in 2009.

A few of Tegeler’s guidelines for hosting Food for Strings:

Before the Event
• Contact your string vendors and ask them to donate strings and partner with you.

• Ask other vendors for giveaways.

• Line up volunteers (friends and employees).

• Stock up on guitar-related accessories, such as cases and tuners.

The Day of the Event
• Set up re-string stations and a check-in table.

• Take care of your volunteers by offering them coffee and refreshments.

• Set up a scale to weigh the food. Keep a running tally of the pounds of food donated and the number of guitars you re-strung or took in.

• Put sequential numbers on the guitars to keep them in order, and track them.

• Hand out tickets for drawings throughout the day.

• Be ready to write work orders for repairs.

• Organize and start an acoustic jam session. People will often hang out all day for this.

• Stream the event live. Livestream.com is free, but it only stays up on the site for 30 days. You can also try Google Hangouts. Broadcast it in the store. This creates a vibe, so people want to participate.

• Take promo shots at the end of the event. Take an in-store group photo with the food stacked up.

After the Event
• Post photos and videos to social media. Get a Food Bank rep to show up for a grip-and-grin photo. Make sure you mention the total amount of food you’re donating in your posts.

​• Write and send a press release. The media loves it!

​“It’s a great event to collect email addresses, so you can market to those folks,” said Bankhead, adding that it’s a feel-good event that your vendors will want to participate in.