American Idol Kris Allen To Help Bring Music Education To Schools

Allen and Music Empowers have partnered to provide a major grant to DonorsChoose.org, the national online charity that matches individual donors to project requests from teachers in public schools.

The initiative hopes to benefit over 10,000 students by helping to provide music supplies to classroom music programs in high poverty areas across the country.

"We are thrilled with the tremendous support of Kris Allen and the Music Empowers Foundation in helping teachers acquire the music supplies their students need to thrive," says Charles Best, Founder and CEO of DonorsChoose.org. "Their commitment will expose thousands of students to music education who may not otherwise have the opportunity."

Funds provided by Music Empowers will be used specifically to match contributions made by individual donors to eligible classroom music projects, under a DonorsChoose.org program called "Double Your Impact."

"Once individual donations total 50% of a music project's cost, Music Empowers will fund the other 50%," explained Andy Davis, founder of Music Empowers Foundation. "If all goes well, we should be able to fund hundreds of these projects and make a real impact in schools where music programs are struggling due to lack of funds."

Kris Allen recently attended Nickelodeon's NickTeen HALO Awards on behalf of Music Empowers and DonorsChoose.org and voiced his support for the joint initiative. "I think DonorsChoose.org is an amazing resource for helping teachers to get the materials they need to do the best job for their students. I am really happy to partner with Music Empowers Foundation to support them and the music teachers and students who will benefit," said Mr. Allen.

In an effort to encourage people to visit the DonorsChoose.org website and contribute to one of the projects eligible for the Music Empowers Foundation matching funds, Kris Allen recorded a special public service announcement which now is airing on television. As revealed in the PSA, he also will be growing a mustache over the next four weeks as a further incentive for his fans to help out.