Keepers this year
3
Artists who have carried the current traveling guitar so far this campaign.
Updated as new keepers receive the guitar.
Reporting period: Jan 1, 2026 – Jul 23, 2026
Impact
What we can count. What we can't.
Impact matters because trust matters. We share the numbers we actually track — keepers, classrooms, communities, events — alongside the stories those numbers point at. Everything on this page is drawn from our own campaign records and from what people chose to share with us.
Download 2026 Impact Report (PDF)Accessible tagged PDF · 2 pages · updates with each dispatch
How we measure
Access.We count the classrooms, communities, and open porches where a traveling guitar actually landed — not audience estimates.
Participation.We count keepers who received the guitar and events they hosted with it, and we name them wherever they consent to be named.
Consent.We do not, and will not, publish a data point that costs a keeper or a student their privacy.
Current campaign
The 2026 Traveling Guitar — this year, so far
Classrooms visited
4
Public school and community classrooms visited during the current campaign.
Reporting period: Jan 1, 2026 – Jul 23, 2026
Community events
6
Open porch sessions, workshops, and community sing-alongs this year.
Reporting period: Jan 1, 2026 – Jul 23, 2026
Since we began
Across every campaign.
Cumulative totals across every traveling guitar we've ever sent out. These figures update as new stops close out and new keepers report back.
Guitars on the road
3
Since we began, three traveling guitars have carried the mission across the country.
Artists and keepers
80+
Musicians, teachers, and neighbors who have played, shared, and passed along a traveling guitar.
Classrooms visited
24
Public school and community classrooms where a traveling guitar has been used to teach a first chord.
Communities reached
47
Cities, towns, and rural stops where the guitar has made a scheduled or unscheduled appearance.
In their words
Stories from the road.
“The day I met a guitar”
Mr. Okafor let me hold it first. I played one chord and it sounded like the whole room.
— Amara, age 12
“Forty-one hands”
We didn't know most of the people who played it that week. By Sunday night, we knew all of them.
— The Sunday Porch Band
Help expand what we can count next year.
Every dollar and every hour puts the next guitar in front of the next kid, the next teacher, the next open door.