Dj Jody King
Donations from SYGNO MUSIC and ORTOFON!
Donations from Sunset Montessori School, Isabelle & Herve Savoure
Having this project here has been an awesome experience and we have meeting meeting interesting people along the way. Many Dj’s have passed through our school.
Rocinha Welcomes Dj Jody King!
Dj Jody King from the UK passed through our school a few days ago and has interest to volunteer showing the students some skills. Dj Jody has been spinning for 11 years mostly house music. Its always a pleasure to welcome new people to our SPIN ROCINHA family.
Sygno Music, Ricardo and Dee from Ortofon have gifts for our Dj school!
Living in Rio de Janeiro is a great city but it lacks many things that the western world has. I have been able to locate three different stores that supply products to Dj’s in Rio. The first is a store that fixes any kind of Dj equipment from turntables, cd players, mixers and speaker systems. The second store sells turntables, cd players and mixers. Trying to find vinyl records here is a mystery hunt. Nothing like in San Francisco with giant stores like Ameoba! Vinyl is difficult to find and expensive. This is the main reason we don’t use vinyl and prefer using the cd players.
The third store Sygno is selling mostly accessories like headphones, cables, bags to transport equipment, behringer mixers and some controllers. I have bought several pairs of heaphones and cdj plastic covers from them. The owner Ricardo contacted me a couple of months ago asking about wanting to bring his friend Dee, who is a distributor for Ortofon, on a tour of Rocinha. Ortofon makes the best needles for turntables. But they also have other accessories like cartridges and headphones. They stopped by the Dj school and had lots of questions. The distributor wanted to help us in some way. I told her that we could use any products that they could offer.
Yesterday Ricardo, the owner of Sygno called me to say that they had received some products from Ortofon. So, today I went by and picked up 4 headphones, 4 slipmats (we do plan on the future to have turntables) and 3 Ortofon t-shirts for our school. All of these our school can use. ORTOFON and SYGNO, We want to thank you Ricardo and Dee for making this happen. Those new to Rio de Janeiro can visit SYGNO MUSIC at rua Barata Ribeiro, 370, loja 219 in Copacabana, tel: 21-3251-1567 and visit their website at: http://www.sygnomusic.com
From Sunset Montessori School to Favela da Rocinha!
Another important contributor comes from the United States, about a year ago Isabelle Savoure and Herve Savoure expressed interest in wanting to help our Dj school. Isabelle told me that her community wanted to do a fundraiser for us. At her daughters Sunset Montessori School in Reston Virginia, they held a International Day on June 2nd, 2012 for their Geography program where the children were taught about countries in the Americas. The filled a day full of educational opportunities where the students could “visit” these countries through sections set up in their school. Some historical sights were from Peru, Columbia, Costa Rica, Canada, Mexico and of course Brazil (Amazon). They were able to raise money for Spin Rocinha by selling handicraft beads, Mardi Gras Masks and feathers and a foto both where people could get photos of themselves taken in front of Niagra Falls. There was also a guest Brazilian singer Gigi McLaughlin from Pernambuco who sang various styles of music. I wish I was there as it sounded like a great time for everybody. Thank you to Isabelle, Herve and the Montessori PTA for organizing this event!
Isabelle contacted me after and said her party raised about 800 US Dollars and asked me where she could send the money. I told her we did not want the money because our non profit is about being transparent, we want people to see that we are for real and that contributions go where they are supposed to go. I told her it would be best if they could buy us some Dj supplies and at the time I told her that we needed headphones. We are sharing two pairs amongst 15 students. So, I was so happy when the box arrived 4 days ago to see 6 headphones for SPIN ROCINHA. I like our contributors to see photos of our happy students who will benefit from these donation. From myself, Dembore and all the students of SPIN ROCINHA, we say a big THANK YOU to Sunset Montessori School!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
