I know music is the great healer and learning to play a musical instrument can make a positive impact on a child’s life.
GOLD STAR MENTORS™
Changing Lives, One Guitar at a time.
Gold Star Mentors™ provides guitars and introductory lessons of playing to children and young adults who are grieving the death of a military loved one. The goal is to introduce another means of coping and healing.
Since September 11, 2001, nearly 10,000 active duty service members have given their lives in support of overseas operations, including deaths by hostile forces, accidents, illness and suicide. These deaths often lead to years of sorrow and grief that creates additional family tragedy including suicide among the surviving family members including their children.
While we can’t heal every broken heart we do intend to bring a friend of a guitar and the gift of music to as many of these children as time and resources allow.
Gold Star Mentors™ is a Nashville, Tennessee based 501c3 nonprofit organization founded in 2017 by award winning songwriter Brett Jones.
LTJG James Grady Jones
08/14/1939 – 11/12/1966
Brett's Family Story
“On November 12, 1966, my oldest brother James Grady Jones was killed in action on a night mission over North Vietnam. He had just been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross two months earlier, but this moonless night he did not return his A-4 Skyhawk fighter/bomber to the deck of the USS FDR.
He left behind family and friends who loved him dearly including a 5 year old daughter and a 1 year old son, Scott. Scott would grow up with a total of four stepfathers – some of whom abused him. He turned to a life of drugs and petty crimes and eventually hung himself in a Costa Rican prison cell In 2004.
I can’t help Scott, but I can reach out to the new Scotts which we are adding at an alarming rate. It is our goal to put guitars in the hands of the surviving children of service men and women who have given the ultimate sacrifice for our country. We need your help to make this goal come true.”
