Students paint guitars for rockin’ raffle at Barren County Middle School

BARREN COUNTY, Ky.- Three groups of eighth graders at Barren County Middle School Creatively customized three guitars, and they’re raffling them off to pour it back right back into their music class.

Mariah Matthews, Barren County Middle School music teacher, told us, “It’s been cool to see some of my guitar students team up with the advanced art students and, you know, show me something that we don’t usually do in class, like painting something and coming up with their designs, and also I’ve got to bond with students and, you know, get to know a different artistic side of them.”

Ashtyn Kessler, eighth grade advanced orchestra student. tells us why helping your classmates is important.

Ashtyn says, “It’s good to have other students, you know that you’re trying to help them out and stuff to help raise money for their program, too, they deserve to have as much money as the others do.”

This is more than an art project. It’s a chance for the students to support one another, innovatively.

Michael Lewis, an eighth grade guitar student at Barren County Middle School, told us how this affected him. He says, “If you enjoy, like, painting, maybe you can get your, let your inner-self if you like painting, maybe you can do more paintings. Maybe when you grow up you can be a painter. if you’re inspired.”

Matthews opened many artistic doors for her students and now they’re using different forms of expression through art to inspire and support one another. She says, “All in all, it’s just really inspiring to watch kids find something unique and watch them grow and their musical abilities and share that with their peers and around them. And just to be able to sit down and make music and play things, you know, that you can’t express through words.”

You will have the chance to win one of these customized guitars on April 22 at 6 p.m. during the Spring Guitar Concert in the Barren County Middle School cafeteria.