Giving Guitars brings music to people in shelters

Music has been shown to help people who are recovering from trauma. Giving Guitars is a nonprofit group that provides guitars for people in shelters to help them on the road to recovery. Our Quad Cities News spoke with Steven Cade, a Josie Award nominated singer-songwriter, who co-founded the group, via Zoom about its work.

“We started Giving Guitars in October of 2021 with a gentleman who has a super giving heart, his name is Brent Yates,” Cade said. “He asked us how we could pray into what we could do with our talent.” The donation journey began with giving a guitar to a homeless family shelter in Austin, Texas. Since then, they’ve donated guitars to 111 homeless shelters in the past three years across 18 states. They’ve donated close to 200 guitars and helped raise almost $200,000 for groups along the way. The group is in the Quad Cities to give a guitar to Humility Homes and Services in Davenport at their 112th stop.

“Music is therapy,” Cade said. “It has been proven to be similar to equine therapy. It is used for soldiers who are recovering from PTSD. It’s used with people who are dealing with severe life-threatening illnesses. We found that going into shelters, a lot of people are experiencing heavy trauma. Some of them have lost everything. They’ve lost their family, they have lost their house, they’ve lost their job, they’ve lost their sense of dignity. Music is a way to restore that; it’s medicine for the soul.”

Unlike other therapy methods, music is universally popular. “I don’t know if I’ve ever met anyone that doesn’t like music,” Cade said. “Not everybody has the opportunity to be able to afford to purchase a guitar. Especially if you’re homeless or unhoused, the chances of you being able to afford a guitar are … it’s just not a very high chance. I’m very familiar with guitars. I write songs, I’ve performed on many guitars over my career. I understand for me personally, it has been a huge healing mechanism or a healing tool for me to be able to create the songs, perform songs for folks on big stages, small stages. I figured that if they get a chance to learn this to play this guitar, it could really turn their lives around and they can help others to learn to play the guitar as well. It’s hopefully a chain reaction that we start, and we’ve already seen a lot of results from that.”

Cade is a fan of music in general, both playing and reading its history. “Music carries a story; it carries a message. I always like to think of Bach creating the chords for us to play from. There’s an American music history, there’s European music history, there’s all kind of music histories all around the world and there’s so much to glean from it. Just about my whole life, I’ve been able to perform live and create songs and share them with audiences.”

“We have a website where people can come and get a sense of what Giving Guitars is all about. Once they get to the website, they can fill out a contact form and they can tell us about their story. We focus mostly on domestic violence shelters, homeless shelters for men, homeless shelters for women, for families, at risk youth, foster homes and bridge housing.” The organization also donates guitars to soldiers suffering from PTSD, but the main focus is getting guitars to shelters.

Cade is amazed by how Giving Guitars is spreading, even going into Canada. “If you would have told me right when we went to our first shelter, ‘you’re gonna be going to 110 more of these and maybe even more beyond that,’ I would have said no way. We’ve built a lot of relationships with shelters and when they hear about it, they’ll tell their friends or their network. We have opened up a Giving Guitars of Canada.” The group is considered a registered charity in Canada, the equivalent of an American 501(c)(3), and plans donations in the United Kingdom this summer.

There are several ways people can help out, said Cade. “We ask people, ‘hey, keep us in prayer as we travel down the road.’ Monetary donations are the easiest way.” The group isn’t seeking out donations of musical instruments. “We’ve selected our guitar that we like to donate because it’s a beginner guitar that has a package. It has a tuner, it has a strap, it has strings.”

“We’ve been receiving testimonies which is great; we got one recently from the Salvation Army where they’re starting a music program as a result of our guitar. There’s also worship bands that have been started with the guitar, it’s just been amazing.”

Fans can donate at the Giving Guitars website or Cade’s website . He realizes his career has put him in a unique position to help others. “If it wasn’t for me necessarily being an artist and performing and creating and writing and playing with some of the greatest artists in the world, then I would not really be able to do this.”

Cade realizes how fortunate he’s been in his career. “I’ve been inducted into the California Music Hall of Fame with Leanne Rimes, William Shatner and Ritchie Valens. We have been considered for over 10 Grammy nominations, which means I’ve made the ballot and been up against people like Dolly Parton and Garth Brooks and Dirks Bentley. I won the best modern country artist of the year a couple years back at the Grand Ole Opry and now I’m up for six more awards, song of the year for my song ‘What Would Kenny Chesney Do.’ I wrote a song called ‘Love Louder’ that’s up for social impact song of the year. I’m up for entertainer of the year, modern country artist of the year. I’m very humbled.”

He’s excited about visiting the Quad Cities. “It’s great to be in Bettendorf Iowa! This is a really beautiful place, I’m gonna tell you right now. I’m so thankful that we get a chance to visit.”

Cade has performed in over eight countries, played over 7,000 shows and shared stages with Eric Church, Blake Shelton and Carrie Underwood. He has new music coming out this week. “I am going to be releasing a new song called ‘Let Me Be Your Love Song’ on July 19 ^th so I’m really excited about that.” Fans can visit Cade’s website to hear the new release.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WHBF - OurQuadCities.com.