Guitar Fundraiser for Brown Children

Jeff Green | Apr 07, 2011

Steve Lloyd has had a special guitar for several years. But he won't have it for much longer.

Steve will be giving away the guitar, which has been signed by a unique mixture of country and hockey legends, as part of a fundraising event at the end of April in order to raise money for an education fund for the children of Verona resident Greg Brown, who died last year.

“Greg was a relative of mine, though my mother, and that's what got me interested in setting this event up,” said Steve from his home in Sydenham this week.

On Saturday April 30. from 8pm to midnight at the Lions Hall in Verona, a number of musician friends of Steve and his wife Penny, who both used to be in the band Shot Gun before 'semi-retiring' from the music business last year, will be performing at an evening of music.

Steve and Penny have always been involved in fundraising for a number of causes over the years, and as this event was being developed the idea of raffling off his guitar came to Steve.

“It's a pretty good guitar,” he says of the instrument that he purchased at Renaissance Music in 1997. But it is what has happened to the guitar since Steve has owned it that makes it such a collector's item.

Steve went on a road trip with a radio personality, the Big G from Kix93.5, to Nashville in 2005. And as they met personalities and celebrities on that trip Steve had them sign his guitar.

“We stayed with Big Tom from the Survivor show on the way down, and he signed it, and while we were in Nashville we did some shows from the Country Music Hall of Fame and that is where Jean Shepard, Jan Howard, Jeannie Seely, the Wilkinsons, and a bunch of other people signed it.

Later on Steve won a contest that sent him to the Air Canada Centre in Toronto to try and score a goal on well known former goalies for a large prize. He didn't get very far on that score. “I'm not much of a skater,” he admits, but he did get his guitar signed by Curtis Joseph, Billy Smith, former Olympic gold medalist, Samantha 'Sam Jo' Small, Rick Smith and others.

Tickets are available on the raffle for the guitar for a $5 donation to the Brown Children’s Education Fund. They can be found at Leonard Fuels, Verona Hardware, L.D. Power Sports, Local Family Farms, Ella’s Cafe and Bakery, Renaissance Music, Hillside Coffee, and Naish's General Store.

The guitar will be raffled off at the end of the musical evening on April 30. Among the performers will be Don Cochrane, Dieter Boehme, Rick, Lyne and Amber Pilon, Tony Abreu, Ray Dube, Brian Rudachek, Steve and Penny Lloyd, and more. There will be Karaoke, and a silent auction will also take place. People who would like to donate to the auction are asked to call 613-376-7688.

Admission will be a $10 donation.