Las Vegas rocker donates guitars to school kids in need

He already has the beard.

“One of my dreams is to be a rock ’n’ roll Santa Claus,” Ryan Patrick smiles through thick, dark whiskers. “Rock ’n’ roll is cool, guys — here’s a guitar; let’s learn.”

The Otherwise guitarist is well on his way to making said dream a reality.

Last month, Patrick opened a shipment of 30 acoustic guitars to be given to local schools through his nonprofit organization, Life by Music, which he founded in 2016.

Gibson Guitars, which endorses Patrick, donated the instruments. He also works with a GoFundMe account established by Las Vegan Jesse Magana to buy guitars for schools.

This is the second shipment Patrick has received from Gibson since late last year.

“This is absolutely huge,” he says, eyeing the instruments with pride in the warehouse of local trade show marketing company Structure Exhibits. “I’ve wanted this for so long. The need for guitars in the valley is so much greater than anybody realized. There’s so many kids who’ve expressed interest in guitar but don’t have the means of having a guitar.”

Pre-pandemic, Patrick regularly visited schools to hold workshops introducing students to his instrument of choice. He even created his own instruction manual for kids, “Guitar Magic.”

While classrooms are currently empty, Patrick is still delivering guitars to the Clark County School District, which in turn gets them into the hands of students.

The coronavirus may have disrupted the school year, but not Patrick’s efforts.

“There’s always something positive you can find in the mess of life. That’s what music is all about,” he says. “Everything is just crazy right now, but there’s still positive stuff happening.”