Brighten Your Day

Billy Strings Surprises Every Kid At His Former Elementary School With A Guitar

November 12, 2021

Billy Strings returned to his former elementary school this week and surprised more than 200 students with their own acoustic guitar.

@billystrings / Instagram

The 29-year-old Grammy Award-winning musician stopped at Twin Rivers Elementary School in Muir, Michigan with a U-HAUL truck filled with brand new guitars.

"My guitar has always been there for me — through good times, bad times and everything in between," Strings said in a statement. "The guitar has taken me places that I could only dream of. My hope is that one of these guitars does the same thing for one of these kids. I look forward to coming back and seeing how these future musicians progress for years to come."

Credit: Paul Frost / Sentinel-Standard.com

Twin Rivers Elementary Principal Paul Frost said the 208 students at Twin Rivers Elementary each received a guitar.

"He sat in the seats my students are sitting in right now," Frost told the Sentinel-Standard. "He's gone on to have the kind of success he's had. I think it opens up the possibility for the students here (to think), 'If I work hard toward my dreams, I can achieve those dreams.' He exemplifies that.

For him to come back, remember us, talk about how important this school was to him when he was a kid, how important the guitar was and give something like that to every one of the kids here is such a meaningful and generous gesture. It was a beautiful thing."

Billy Strings / Sentinel-Standard.com

Rolling Stone magazine named Strings one of the Top Ten New Country Artists to Know in 2017.

In 2018, Rolling Stone published an article entitled "Bluegrass Prodigy Billy Strings Plots 2018 Spring Tour," saying, "Billy Strings doesn't have any trouble living up to his name. [He is] one of the latest breakneck guitar pickers to emerge in the bluegrass world."

In 2021, Strings took home the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album.