ASHEVILLE, N.C. (828newsNOW) — They say if you feed a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime. Substitute a guitar for the fishing rod, and you might get Joe Hooten.
“Ever since I began teaching, I’ve always kept a couple of just budget, low value guitars in the classroom,” said Hooten, an 8th grade social studies teacher at Asheville Middle School. “So that, number one, I could strum around when I had free time, and then number two, if any kids were interested, especially at the beginning of the year, it’s a great conversation starter to see which kids gravitate towards those.”
After Hurricane Helene, the teacher realized his students were gravitating toward the classroom instruments.
“More and more kids this year that I feel like ever were asking, ‘hey, can I come back at lunch, and can you show me how to play this song?’ Or, ‘can you teach me something on guitar?'” Hooten said. “And then I ended up giving away my personal guitars that I had.”
Hooten donated several of his own guitars to kids he thought would use them but lacked the means to purchase an instrument brand-new. Giving them away was the beginning of the Tin Roof Echo musician’s latest music philanthropy project.
Last fall, Hooten was one of the organizers of “Caverns of Gold,” a benefit album for Helene survivors featuring music from over 270 musicians. The album, available on Bandcamp, sold hundreds of copies and donated 100% of its profits to BeLoved Asheville.
Read more about “Caverns of Gold” in our story here.
Hooten hoped he could replicate a similar response from the community for his guitar project.
“I was like, wouldn’t it be neat if the community, you know, just dug through their basements or their closets or whatever and then found these things that they weren’t using? And then I could collect them and then distribute them to kids?” Hooten recalled.
Hooten put out the call. As it turned out, Asheville’s closets were even more musical than he expected. Four weeks in, the AMS teacher has already given away over 20 instruments. 50 more are stashed in his basement.
Guitars aren’t the only thing Hooten’s getting, either.
“I’ve opened this up to include other instruments that I’ve been collecting,” Hooten said. “Like, I’ve got a harpsichord. I’ve got saxophones, bass guitars, electric guitars, guitar amps. Somebody’s volunteered to give me a drum set.”
Hooten has also received clarinets and keyboards. One woman in Burlington, N.C. has 30 violins she wants to give him. Another woman in Weaverville, N.C. has several varieties of ukulele to donate.
“People are just very compelled to pass this on,” Hooten said. “They just want to feel good about their donation, and I’ve been very reassuring to them that, I can promise you, they’re going to good kids in good homes and kids that are really going to benefit from this.”
Hooten plans on taking a survey of AMS students at the beginning of the 2025-2026 school year to gauge interest in the instruments. The project is still in early stages.
“I’ve just been calling this ‘Asheville Middle School Guitar Donation Project.’ That’s all I’ve been calling it right now, but that’s pretty bland and not as catchy, and I need to come up with something better,” Hooten joked. “But I’ll see. If this continues to be as successful as some of my other projects, I might start to get serious about putting something together that’s more legit.”
In the meantime, Hooten is still accepting instruments from the community at his donation site, the front desk of Asheville Middle School. Pick-up requests can also be made by email at joseph.hooten@acsgmail.net.
As the school year approaches, Hooten is looking forward to seeing how AMS students will flourish with instruments of their own.
“If they take off and become the next Jimi Hendrix or Bob Dylan or whatever it is, that’s gonna be awesome, but if it creates some self-confidence, it sparks some creativity, it brings some joy, this is what this whole project is about,” Hooten said.