South by Southwest is pleased to announce that we have entered into a promotional partnership with Austin Music Award-winning pirate band The Jolly Garogers as their nonprofit organization - Pirates for the Preservation of New Orleans Music - embarks on its International Cash Donation Drive.

Pirates for the Preservation of New Orleans Music (PPNOM) is a Texas nonprofit corporation dedicated to rebuilding the music education programs of the New Orleans public schools hardest-hit by Hurricane Katrina.

Proceeds from the Donation Drive will be delivered directly to the schools with the greatest need for assistance. This grass-roots, non-bureaucratic approach to assistance in the rebuilding of the public school music education programs of post-Katrina New Orleans makes the PPNOM organization one with which SXSW is proud to partner.

In the city that remains the epicenter of indigenous American music, the schools of New Orleans must continue to foster the development of the current generation of music students who will, in the not-so-distant future, follow in the footsteps of Ellis, Wynton, and Branford Marsalis, The Neville Bothers, Harry Connick, Jr., Dr. John, and countless other mainstays of American music.

With budgetary allocations to the music education programs in the New Orleans schools at an all-time low, your contribution to this worthy cause is more important than ever.

To learn more, please visit the official website of Pirates for the Preservation of New Orleans Music by clicking here.

Please give generously to PPNOM. The students of New Orleans need your help.

Original post by melissa