On September 13, during the final minutes of the hit TV series Glee, Fox aired an announcement of the campaign “Glee Give A Note.” The PSA featured Glee star Jane Lynch. The campaign, a partnership between the National Association for Music Education and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, will give a million dollars to school music programs this year through an online video contest.
In August, Lynch hosted the “Do Something Awards” on VH1, which recognized young people for their community service work. She told The Huffington Post, “In California we’re basically bankrupt in our public schools; we don’t have arts, music or drama, so I help raise money for my own child’s school so that we can have our art teacher and music teacher.”
Lynch also works through an organization that helps bring the arts to schools where parents can’t afford to personally subsidize their school arts programs. She added, “It’s proven that part of your brain, when you wake that up, you’re just a much more rounded person, you become a part of a team and you’re making something beautiful, you’re making something out of nothing — there’s a lot to be said for that. It was a big part of my life, to go to choir.”
And unlike Sue Sylvester, the arts-hating cheerleading coach she plays on Glee, Lynch said: “I’m so glad that Glee exists… it has inspired so many to join [arts programs].”
On Sunday, September 18, Lynch will host an awards show with an even bigger reach—the 63rd Primetime Emmy® Awards, which are presented by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences and will be broadcast on Fox.
- Glee Give A Note PSA from NAfMEAdvocacy on Vimeo.
- Campaign Press Release
- Enter the Contest
- Give a Note Foundation
–Elizabeth Lasko and Roz Fehr, September 14, 2011, © National Association for Music Education
