The Jake McGuire Savage Foundation

The Foundation is currently providing support to several projects in the greater Washington, D.C. area and in the greater Charleston, S.C. area. Here is a brief description of some of the programs implemented to date:

The Foundation's grant for the purchase of musical instruments and other equipment for the musical part of the curriculum of Horizons@Maret, an academic and social enrichment program for at-risk low income children attending kindergarden to 5th grade at H. D. Cooke Elementary School in the District of Columbia, has been supplemented by another grant to fund part of the salary of a new teacher-in-training.

Working with Creative Spark in Mt. Pleasant, S.C., the Foundation funded artist-in-residence programs providing children at Hanahan Elementary School and Howe Hall School with instruction in the technique for playing a mountain dulcimer and providing children at Dunston Elementary School with instruction in the harmonica. The Foundation also funds musical scholarships at Creative Spark's own facility.

The Foundation is continuing its long-standing support for Carolina Studios, which provides musical education and recording facilities at mobile and permanent locations in the Charleston, S.C. area, including donation of electronic equipment, and defraying some of the project's operation expenses for the North Charleston studio, and financing the purchase of a computers for a new location on Alexander Street in downtown Charleston.

In partnership with the Housing Authority of the City of Charleston, a sponsor of Charleston's Storefront School for the Arts, the Foundation developed and inaugurated an after-school music program at Julian Mitchell Elementary School, funding the purchase of musical instruments for the program and part of the salaries of the music director and his assistant. To publicize the need for support and celebrate the reintroduction of jazz to Charleston's children living in public housing projects, the Foundation joined with the Housing Authority and the Charleston Jazz Initiative to sponsor and produce a Jazz Tribute to William Blake, musical director at the Jenkins Orphanage from 1920 until 1958, a musical picnic, held at the former site of the Orphanage as part of Charleston's annual Piccolo Spoleto festival.

In past years, the Foundation has provided instruments and summer music camp assistance to the Band Boosters of Francis C. Hammond Middle School in Alexandria, Virginia and a cello to the Stringed Music Department of the Isaac Gourdine Middle School in Oxon Hill, Maryland.