After 31 years of teaching, Snoqualmie resident Mike McCoy has found a new passion, building guitars. McCoy started a non-profit, Tokul Creek Guitars, to build and give away guitars to children and teenagers unable to afford them.

McCoy taught first grade in the Lake Washington School District for 31 years and in 2004 joined the folk group The Brothers Four. He was able to balance his work as a teacher and touring with the band, but was forced to make a choice between the two in 2008.

“We go to Japan every couple years and do shows around the nation. I’d take unpaid leaves of absence,” McCoy said. “The principal and superintendent were OK with it, well then the superintendent changed and the new superintendent changed policy and told me I could no longer take these leaves of absence and sing. At that time I had taught 31 years, so I sang. It worked out fine.”

After retiring from teaching, McCoy tried to stay busy by building a deck, storage shed, and his workshop. That work, along with playing in The Brothers Four, led him to start thinking about building guitars and giving them to children or teenagers who may have the talent, but not the money to buy one.

“Music has been a part of my life. There are a lot of kids who enjoy playing music who aren’t able to because they can’t afford to buy a guitar, no matter the price,” he said. “So I thought maybe I’ll do that, maybe I’ll make guitars and give them away.”

With the idea in mind, he drew up a 20-year plan to build guitars and asked his friend, a luthier (a person who builds and repairs string instruments), to help him learn.

Initially McCoy borrowed equipment to start building and learned from online video courses. Over time he gradually purchased some of the equipment he needed for his own workshop, which sped up the process. McCoy was unsure of the quality of his first guitar until he played it for himself once finished.

“Surprisingly it sounded better than I thought it was going to,” he said. “I really expected the first one to be kind of a clunker. I didn’t want to give something to somebody that wasn’t playable, but it really wasn’t too bad. I made a few adjustments to it and put on a different set of strings.”

He then let Sherri Youngward, a Christian worship artist, play the guitar which boosted McCoy’s confidence in his work.

“She asked to look at the guitar and started playing it and she said ‘this sounds good’,” he said. “She played it for 10 or 15 minutes and made it sound very good.”

In discussion about his new project at church, McCoy discovered the first recipient of his hand crafted guitars.

“I had spoken to a fellow at church who was a pastor down in Belize. I told him what I was doing, he said he had a guy down there, 18 years old, who would love a guitar. He doesn’t have one and it would be perfect,” he said. “Time passed and I’m sure they thought I forgot, but I finished it and sent it down to them.”

He said that he would be willing to send his guitars anywhere as long as there was someone there who would benefit from them.

“I would send them anywhere in the world,” McCoy said. “It’s a tad more cost effective to send them locally than sending to Belize, but that’s not an issue. If someone sends me a name and says ‘this young man or young lady could really use something like this’ then that’s it.”

Part of McCoy’s goal for the project is to have all the resources he needs to build guitars for people unable to afford one, but he is in need of equipment and people to send guitars to.

“I’m still in the process of buying the stuff I need,” he said. “The goal is to be a completely enclosed shop where I don’t have to go to my friend’s house to use some of his things.”

With the help of some family, McCoy has set up www.tokulcreekguitars.com, a website on which people can submit names of those they think would benefit from a guitar or donate to help him acquire the equipment and materials he needs.

“It’s going to be a lot more manageable once I get everything I need to make everything here. I just need people to send them to, I need names. I can maybe build six to eight a year, that’s my plan,” he said. “This was my 20-year plan. Do this for 20 years until my fingers quit working.”