08/04/2025
New press release…
Walnut Valley Festival Announces Guitar Raffle to Raise Funds for Youth Guitar Lessons
Organizers of the 53rd Walnut Valley Festival have teamed up with Danny Ginn String Works, and will raffle a guitar this fall to raise funds for youth guitar lessons in Cowley County. The music festival will take place September 17-21, in Winfield, Kansas.
The guitar to be raffled, a custom Couch and Concert model, features Brazilian Rosewood back and sides and a torrified Sitka Spruce top. It has an ebony fret board & bridge, and pins with abalone dots. While the head stock is inlaid with the Danny Ginn String Works logo, the guitar body features a Feisty, Walnut Valley Festival’s signature guitar playing cowboy. The instrument, set up for fingerstyle play, comes complete with wi-fi electronics and even a tweed Crossrock hardshell guitar case.
A similar guitar was raffled at last year’s Walnut Valley Festival, raising over $7,000 to support Cowley County’s House of Hope. Danny Ginn, a retired pastor and talented luthier located in Winfield, constructs custom-made guitars for friends and a select group of buyers. Ginn approached Festival organizers to see if another guitar raffle might be used to raise funds for area youth who would like to learn guitar, but who might lack access to an instrument or instructor.
Plans call for $40 raffle tickets to be sold during the festival, with the total number of tickets set at 200. Raffle tickets will be sold at the Crafts Booth Thursday-Saturday, and then drawing and presentation of the guitar will take place on Sunday at noon, on Stage I. All funds raised through the raffle will go to support group guitar lessons for area youth, including teaching fees for the instructor and help with procurement of guitars for the students’ use. Walnut Valley Festival will provide a venue for the lessons in downtown Winfield, at Bob’s Place, 920 Main Street.
WVF Executive Director Bart Redford — “When Danny approached us about building a guitar to raffle off at Festival this year, he expressed a desire to support activities for kids. We discussed different uses of the funds, and this is something that appealed to both Danny and to us. We are so grateful to Danny for building such a beautiful and unique guitar, and we look forward to hosting guitar lessons at Bob’s Place. The building has been used as a venue for jam sessions, hosting performers at Winfield’s pre-Festival music crawl, and even a few memorial events for folks associated with the Festival. We are delighted to take part in another effort to support music and music instruction in Winfield.
