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Advocate photo by John McCusker — Thomas Morstead visits with son, Max, on the sidelines before a 2014 preseason game.
It may be the offseason for Thomas Morstead’s job as the Saints punter, but he isn’t taking a break from his charity work.
Morstead on Friday is set to donate 24 new instruments to the marching band at James M. Singleton Charter School in Central City, one of New Orleans’ most impoverished and violent neighborhoods.
Singleton — which opened in 1999 — has made it a priority to expose its students to various musical styles and cultures, and its band counts on 55 students as members. It’d be larger if it had more instruments, but it doesn’t.
That’ll change Friday thanks to a collaboration between Morstead’s What You Give Will Grow charity — which focuses on helping children and cancer patients — and the Tipitina’s Foundation’s “Instruments A Comin'” program. Morstead and Tipitina’s Foundation Executive Director Bethany Paulsen late Friday morning will present Singleton’s students with two dozen new instruments as well as funds for music books to permit the band to grow in numbers, they said in a press release.
“When we announced the start of the foundation, we were focused on being limitless in who we would reaching, and helping to provide access to the arts is important in New Orleans’ rich culture of music,” Morstead, who launched What You Give Will Grow in 2012, said in a statement.
Paulsen added in a statement, “The value of music education is irrefutable. Providing band directors with the resources — the instruments — that they need is vital to making sure that all of the students in our community have access to music education and that the music that is so important to our culture continues to thrive.”
Singleton’s marching band has been performing since the fall of 2010. It is directed by James Rayford and can be seen at Carnival parades.
Morstead, meanwhile, earned distinction as the Saints’ “Man of the Year” for both his charity work as well his on-field performance — he was part of the reason why New Orleans held opponents to the fewest punt-return yards in the NFL (99), and he registered the second-highest average of net yards per punt (42.9) in the league.
Morstead’s Saints honor entered him into consideration for the 2015 Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year Award. The winner of the Payton award will be announced during the fourth annual NFL Honors show on Jan. 31, the night before Super XLIX in Glendale, Arizona.
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