Making Good Season 6 Episode 10 Recap: Free Guitars 4 Kids 

It’s no secret to Kirby that music has the power to bring people together and spread joy. In the final episode of season six, Kirby heads to Austin, Texas, with his trusty guitar to join Free Guitars 4 Kids in their mission of getting instruments in the hands of as many kids as possible. 

Free Guitars 4 Kids believes everyone should be able to experience the joy and tangible benefits of playing music, so it’s important every kid has access to a guitar. 

The organization receives used guitar donations, preps them for the next owner, then donates the guitars to nonprofits in need throughout the city of Austin, like after school programs or summer camps. 

Kirby heads to Austin Vintage Guitars to meet Ben Dudley, Executive Director of Free Guitars 4 Kids. 

Realizing so many people buy guitars thinking they’ll play them, but they often end up collecting dust in a closet instead, Ben and Terry partner to figure out how to get those unused guitars into kids hands. This week, Kirby hopes to help FG4K restore 150 guitars to donate. 

After passing his skills test of stringing and tuning a guitar under a time crunch, Ben welcomes Kirby as a volunteer on the team with his very own FG4K t-shirt. 

Ben was brought onto the FG4K team in 2022, and has given away over 1,000 guitars in 15 different states since then. He stresses to Kirby how playing guitar can act as a mental health escape and release, and worries of kids being deprived of this opportunity. 

“There’s so much going on in the world, I feel like as a kid it would be really challenging to grow up right now,” says Ben. “You hear about the mental health crisis in our country, and I just know for me, how important the guitar is to give me an outlet to share my joy, to share my pain.” 

“If I can give a kid a skill that they can go to, to deal with those emotions, to deal with being a teenager when everything’s going on and so hard, I feel like I’m making an impact, making a difference. So that’s a big motivator for me,” Ben tells Kirby. 

With a big week ahead of them, Kirby heads to Decker Middle School to meet some of the youth that’ll be receiving guitars in the giveaway, and hear them play. 

Victor Longoria, who teaches classical guitar at the school, welcomes Kirby into his class along with eighth-grade students Alexander, Katherine, and Zion. 

“What drives me to get near a guitar is it just feels great to play it. Everything about it,” says Alexander. “The passion, playing songs for people.” 

Though the room is buzzing with music and excitement, only some kids are able to take that spirit home with them. Because some kids, like Katherine, don’t have guitars waiting at home for them. And knowing students like Zion are interested in electric guitars, Kirby heads to collect, fix, and tune-up the 150 guitars they’ll put in these students' hands shortly. 

Joining him in guitar assembly is FG4K co-founder and friend Terry Esau, who is also founder of the organization Free Bikes 4 Kidz, which was featured in season 1 of Making Good. 

“My whole career was in the music business and there’s nothing like sitting down with a guitar and writing,” says Terry. “These guitars that people donate, they still have songs left in them. And these kids need an instrument to get their feelings out.” 

Kirby questions why Terry’s devoted his life to this, but Terry says even if he was retired, he’d be doing this: “I love it. It makes me happy. It gives me joy.” 

Now it’s time to make sure each guitar has fresh strings, is polished up, tuned, and ready to play. It’s important to FG4K that when a kid receives their guitar, they’ve already taken away any obstacles that may prevent them from playing. 

Volunteers like Chris Margrave tell Kirby he would’ve loved to have access to instruments like this when he was younger. 

“My daughter plays guitar, I love to see her get into almost, like, a flow state when she’s playing. I actually get into that same kind of flow state when I’m, like, working on instruments,” Chris says. “I love to kind of lose myself in an activity where I’m helping somebody. And even though the kids that are getting these guitars aren’t here in front of us, I’m plucking a string that’s making a sound that's actually connected to the kid that's going to be playing that guitar.” 

The time for the big giveaway is finally here, with electric and acoustic guitars lined up in Decker Middle School for students to take their pick from. 

As each student selects their guitar, Kirby, Ben, and Terry, along with the other volunteers, all play, teach, and make connections alongside them. With some kids saying it was the best day ever when they learned they got to keep the guitars. 

“I was wondering how the kids were gonna react,” says Ben. “They’re middle school kids, they have to play cool, but there was something, like a barrier was broken by giving this guitar. It created a conduit for a relationship.” 

Alexander hopes he can continue to pursue music and create something of himself, and hopes the music he plays for others will make them smile. 

Students like Katherine are thrilled to receive their first guitar, and the FG4K team feels lucky to be part of such a special moment for her. 

“I go back to my first guitar when I’m 12 years old,” Terry recalls. “I would go up in my room and play away at that thing. And on a tough day, when something happened at school or whatever, you could go and you could sit down and play your guitar and you can get your feelings out through that instrument, and it was therapy.” 

Guitar teacher Victor recounts his first guitar, an electric guitar: “I played it so much that the volume knobs started squeaking when I would turn them. I still cherish it, I still bring it to class and I show the kids: this is my first guitar. I still play this guitar because it holds a special place in my heart…I think the kids will feel the same with theirs.” 

“It’s a lot of work, and a lot of time we put into organizing these things, trying to raise money to get the guitars and all that stuff,” says Ben. “But seeing the kids get them, and how appreciative they were, and knowing they have songs in them they can go and share with the world and with their families, is the motivation for me to keep going.” 

“There’s something inside of you when you give something to somebody, especially if they really need it. It stays with you a long time,” says Terry. 

“A lot of life is shared around the guitar. It’s what brings communities together,” says Ben, noting his goal is to give away a million guitars through FG4K. “We want our gift of the guitar to be transformational and not just transactional.”

Stream the episode now, along with the entire sixth season of Making Good. 

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