Singer's donation to Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum is second largest in Nashville museum's history.
By John Mitchell
Taylor Swift
Photo: Getty Images
Taylor Swift has a reputation for being a good girl with a big heart, and when you pair that with her sizable bank account, you get one very large charitable donation that will benefit music education for both children and senior citizens.
The six-time Grammy winner has donated $4 million to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville to fund what will now be known as the Taylor Swift Education Center, an exhibit and classroom space scheduled to open in 2014.
"In terms of what it will allow us to do, we do education very well now," museum director Kyle Young told the Associated Press (via Billboard). "It will allow us to do what we do better, serve more people, develop new programs, and I'm happy to say that as we talked through this opportunity with Taylor, she very much wants to be involved in an advisory capacity in what we do. Is there a better person out there who's in touch with a young audience? I think not. I was joking we should be paying her to do that. I was only joking."
Swift's donation is the second largest ever gifted to the museum and is the largest given by a musician. The country-pop megastar has a long history with the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. She signed her record contract there and gave one of her first public performances on the building's plaza.
In the past, she has also volunteered her time to the museum's "All for the Hall" fundraisers.
The Taylor Swift Education Center is part of a larger $75 million expansion of the Hall of Fame that will more than double the size of the museum and include a new concert theater and more space for exhibits and archives.
The planned education center will be more than 7,500 square feet spread over two stories. It will have its own exterior entrance that will lead to three classrooms and exhibit space. The expansion will allow the museum to dramatically increase its youth education programs, with plans for it to house a "musical petting zoo" and an art classroom where children can make concert posters and other art projects.
The center will also give the museum the opportunity to add new programs and workshops for teens and senior citizens.
"For Taylor to want to engage herself in the life of this place in such an appropriate way," Young continued, "every way you slice it and dice it, it's great."
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