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 living in the Adams Morgan neighborhood in the District of Columbia, has been supplemented by additional grants to fund part of the salary of the music teacher. Separately, the Foundation provides instruments and funds concerts for the music program and the H. D. Cooke Elementary School in Adams Morgan.

Working with Creative Spark in Mt. Pleasant, S.C., the Foundation has offered a musical scholarship program for underserved children in the neighboring Snowden community and has sponsored residences for visiting musicians to teach musical segments in selected public schools. Students were introduced to the dulcimer, and learned how to play harmonicas and wooden flutes that they took home at the end of the courses.

The Foundation is continuing its long-standing support for Carolina Studios, which provides musical education and recording facilities in the Charleston, S.C. area.

In partnership with the Housing Authority of the City of Charleston, 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. As part of Charleston's annual Piccolo Spoleto festival, to publicize the need for support and celebrate the reintroduction of jazz to Charleston's children living in public housing projects, the Foundation has joined with the Housing Authority to sponsor an annual musical picnic, held at the former site of the Jenkins Orphanage.

In the summer of 2008 a musical education program known as "Jake's Music" was initiated at the Marion Strobel Center in Charleston in conjunction with the city's Recreation and Public Housing Departments and Yo Art Project. A "Jake's Music" program was also initiated, in cooperation with the Department of Juvenile Justice, at a studio in the public housing project in Charleston's Wraggsborough neighborhood. The Foundation is seeking to build on this experience and to develop similar programs in North Charleston and in the Washington, D.C. area as a deterrent to anti-social behavior of youth under the supervision of the juvenile justice system.

Two sites in Charleston public housing neighborhoods, Wraggsborough and Sarah Green are currently used by "Jake's Music" in partnership with the Housing Authority to offer year around music training for children in these neighborhoods.

In the Fall of 2009 new programs have been launched in Washington and North Charleston. At "Jake's Music at Brookland Manor" young musicians living in a subsidized housing complex in Northeast D.C. are learning keyboard, drums, sax and guitar. In North Charleston a pilot program in partnership with Seacoast Church called "Jake's Music at the Dream Center" is focusing on piano/keyboard training.