UNIVERSITY AREA - Brian Crawford helped 14-year-old Pharaoh Blankenship move his fingers along the loaner guitar to make the chords.
Two days after the lesson, the guitar would belong to the Liberty Middle School student, free of charge - after getting 10 hours of free lessons along with others in a summer camp program.
"I feel like if I can get better, I can use it for stress relief and to express my emotions," Pharaoh said.
No Fret Guitar, a local nonprofit, makes the lessons and the gift of the guitar possible. Since 2016, more than 40 groups locally and across the state have hosted No Fret Guitar camps. Pharaoh participated in a camp at his church, 1 Body Global Ministries.
Gary Brosch, a New Tampa retiree who plays guitar at services at St. James United Methodist Church in Tampa Palms, founded No Fret Guitar. The idea took root on a 2014 mission trip to a South Africa school where he taught two teens to play guitar in a week and left the guitars there.
"It's a good school, we feed the kids, we teach them about Jesus," Borsch said. "But I felt we should do more."
His wife, Barbara, said, " 'Why don't you teach the kids to play guitar?'"
Brosch said he liked the idea because "the church uses music and helps people get in touch with themselves and in touch with Jesus." After the trip, he started looking around and seeing needs in the University Area, between Fowler Avenue and Bearss Avenue, and only miles near his home in West Meadows.
"I decided I just wanted to give the gift of music to those kids," said Brosch, a former transportation researcher who has been married for 35 years to Barbara.
He held the class in the University Area with youth clamoring to be chosen, even though two of the kids spoke only Swahili.
"In that first camp, by the end of the week, three girls were singing and playing folk songs in Swahili," he said.
Soon, a Temple Terrace church heard about the program and asked for it. By the end of the summer in 2016, he had offered three camps.
He started planning how to expand the program and developed a package of materials and techniques for others to use at the camp. He gained nonprofit 501 (c) 3 status, with 20 camps held in summer 2017.
Each host site provides a volunteer instructor, space and cost (or partial cost) of the guitars, which go home with the students at the end of the week.
A brokerage company donated services to get the $250 guitars at a wholesale, import price of $60 each.
"God just keeps doing amazing things for us," Brosch said.
Summer classes meet two hours a day for five days while some churches have started offering the camp during the school year. At those camps, it is two hours once a week for five weeks.
"Everything is 100 percent volunteer," Brosch said. "For every $1,000 donated, we can deliver $10,000 of services."
He added: "It only takes somebody who can play four chords to teach. You don't have to be a professional player or have ever taught. "
During the classes, students learn hymns including Amazing Grace and Open the Eyes of my Heart, Lord. Scripture lessons are incorporated into the camp program.
Students also get to choose popular songs they would like to learn. At one camp this summer, the students choose Counting Stars and Stand By Me.
"If they can learn five or six chords, they will be able to play 100s of popular songs," Brosch said.
At the 1 Body Global Ministries camp, Sofia Monteiro, 9, a Hunter's Green Elementary student participated.
Her mother, Ingrid Hernandez, who came to the U.S. from Venezuela with Sofia, said, "She didn't want to come, but she came home excited after the first day."
Amanda Diana, a missionary with 1 Body Global Ministries, praised the program.
"A lot of kids going through bullying and with this, it raises their point of view," Diana said. "They are much more aware of what is going on."
Contact Lenora Lake at hillsnews@tampabay.com.