Guitars Not Guns: Mobile Boys & Girls Club Program Steers Kids Toward Music Instead of the Street
Mobile's Boys & Girls Clubs run the Guitars Not Guns program, teaching kids guitar at Kiwanis and Cody Road branches to steer them away from violence.
A music room inside a Mobile youth club has become an unlikely front line in the city’s effort to pull young people away from gun violence.
The Boys & Girls Club’s Guitars Not Guns program gives members at its Kiwanis and Cody Road branch locations a six- to eight-week course in guitar instruction, and organizers say the goal goes well beyond learning chords. At the end of each session, students get to take a guitar home so the practice doesn’t stop when class does.
Cory Penn, who directs the club’s Kiwanis Branch, said the idea is simple: give children something meaningful to pursue before trouble finds them. The program encourages kids to explore the performing arts — or any passion — as a positive outlet.
Guitar instructor Gregory Finley, who performs locally under the name Pap-Star, said the need is personal. He pointed to rising violence in the city, noting that public safety officials have reported teenagers as young as 15 facing murder charges. Music, he argued, offers kids more than just an activity.
Sometimes, Finley said, young people struggle to put their feelings into words for adults at all. Playing music gives them another way to communicate — a way to say they’re hurting without having to say it outright.
For now the program operates only at the Kiwanis and Cody Road locations, but club leaders want to expand it. They’re recruiting volunteers both to teach at additional branches and to serve as mentors. Parents of club members can ask about enrolling at any branch, and the club works out transportation for families whose home site doesn’t host the classes.
One young student, Israel, has been playing for only a few months but already calls the program meaningful — evidence, supporters say, that a guitar can be as powerful a deterrent as any lecture.
About the Boys & Girls Clubs
The Boys & Girls Clubs movement traces its roots to 1860, when the first club opened in Hartford, Connecticut. The national organization took the name Boys & Girls Clubs of America in 1990, and its local clubs run after-school and summer programs for young people.
