Toyota & VH1 Save The Music Team for Festival Activation to Benefit Music Education Programs

For the third consecutive year Toyota, in partnership with VH1 Save The Music Foundation, will donate instruments and valuable resources to assist music education programs in public schools, as they've previously done in Chicago and New Orleans. Toyota is committed to continuing its support in 2017 to once again bring music education to deserving schools.

Launching at Stagecoach Festival in Indio, California on April 28, the #ToyotaGiving and VH1 Save The Music campaign is an interactive summer music festival activation at six of the nation's most prominent festival destinations. The campaign features on-site and social media participation from festivalgoers while simultaneously increasing awareness of the importance of music education. The campaign benefits VH1 Save The Music Foundation, a national nonprofit organization committed to restoring music education programs in America's public schools. Toyota will present an education grant to a to-be-determined Las Vegas school in partnership with VH1 Save The Music and Life is Beautiful Music & Art Festival.

Each of the six festival stops on the #ToyotaGiving partnership tour will include a unique photo mosaic mural activation. The mosaic will develop in real time throughout the duration of each festival using photos that artists and festival attendees post on social media with the #ToyotaGiving hashtag and a message about what music means to them.

This is the third philanthropic partnership between VH1 Save The Music and Toyota. The 2015 campaign culminated with a surprise appearance by pop singer Santigold in a school assembly in which a grant was presented to LaPlace Elementary in New Orleans. The grant provided students with their first music education program in over a decade. In 2016 a grant aided Chicago-area music education programs by providing instruments and equipment to students and Chicago-bred urban gospel singer, Sir The Baptist, performed with students.

"As a Fine and Performing Arts School, Spry has a tradition of providing opportunities for all our students in the fine arts, including music. Unfortunately because of the realities of the community that we serve, for many of our students these opportunities do not extend beyond the school day. The instruments donated to our school through the Toyota piano grant have allowed us to continue our mission of enriching our students' lives through the arts.We are very grateful to Toyota for this contribution," said Pablo Guzman, assistant principal, John Spry Community School in Chicago.

"At Toyota, we take our commitment to improve education very seriously. As a result, we continue to evolve our partnership with VH1 Save the Music in an effort to create awareness of and support their mission to restore music education programs in schools nationwide," said Steve Appelbaum, national engagement marketing manager, Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc.

"In our 20 th Anniversary year, we are more grateful than ever for Toyota's continued support and for joining us in our mission to provide every student with the benefits of a sustainable music education program," said Henry Donahue, executive director of VH1 Save The Music Foundation. "Thanks to Toyota's help, the last two years were a tremendous success in bringing music programs to schools in New Orleans and Chicago and we look forward to building on that success once again in 2017."