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Help me put a happy finish on a sad story?


Danhedonia

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Please bear with my lengthiness; would love some suggestions.

My job involves multi-state travel most weeks; to stave off the loneliness of being perpetually away from home I try to eat my solo meals at local places found through Yelp! and etc.  One such meal took me to a little sandwich shop in Beaverton, OR, where a nice young kid chatted up me and my coworker as we waited for our food.

We chatted music briefly and after some laughs, he honestly answered a question that he had been a foster kid shuttled around a bunch of homes, and was working at this joint in order to finally get a place of his own after being homeless; the restaurant (as it were) was in an old house's first floor and they were letting him crash upstairs until he got a couple of paychecks under his belt.  The owner of the sandwich shop basically confirmed his story.

He also said that he had had to sell his beloved Squier Tele.  He was not a thug or a {censored}head, and I had been homeless when I was a teen, and so I befriended him on Facebook and got his new address.  He was on FB with one of those 'silly' names (Gumberticules Anonimity, to be precise) but I knew he was Kayleb.

Two months passed, then I went down to my local MGR and picked out a Cort strat-shape that had a pretty nice neck and only set me back $100.  I wanted to get his last name and send the guitar.

The next morning his FB account was deactivated; I felt funny - should I send to a first name, at an address that ... well, might not be his any more.  Guitar is wrapped and ready to ship.

'Nother month passes; business took me back to Oregon; I decide to go a bit out of my way and drop by the sandwich place to see what's up.

It's closed.

I feel pretty {censored}ty about this, in no small part because I wanted to make myself feel good helping out someone with whom I identify, and now I can't. 

I've given up on finding him - but I still have a nice beginner's guitar I'd love to give to someone who otherwise would not get one.  It's NOT a toy, and I don't want to give it to a kid so their parents can avoid the Starcaster.  I'd like to give it to a young person down on their luck.

Anyone got any suggestions?  Know of an organization who might appreciate some instrumental donations?

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You could hold onto that package until a hardship story turns up here (tornado, hurricane, house fire, illness, etc,).

OR you could contact the music teacher at your local high school in the "bad" part of town to see if they know of a good candidate.  You could donate the guitar to the school OR an individual the teacher recommends.

Good on you for trying to help out Kayleb, it's never too late to perform such a good deed elsewhere.

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My thought is don't rush to give it to the next opprtunity but wait for one that is unequivocally real in terms of need. Your effort to help makes you deserving of making sure you feel rewarded for the deed and that it is not wasred. Remember, some "poor kids" are more deserving than others and it's hard to sort them out but worth it.

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It's packed in a box, sitting in a corner of the living room.  Who knows, maybe he'll reactivate his FB account - or as noted, yeah, the right situation will present itself.

I wish I knew a place that tried to help kids without direction through music.  I know a lot of people that the Music Industry screwed up, but I also know a lot of people (me included) who might not be here were it not for music.  Would love to pay it forward.

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