Ed Sheeran Donates Guitar to Help Primary School in His Hometown

Ed Sheeran has donated a guitar made for his recent album ‘=’ to help a primary school in his hometown. The guitar, which features symbolism from the album, including a custom maple inlay at the seventh fret, a butterfly inlay motif – a recurring theme within the album – at the truss rod cover and neck heel cap, and a custom-designed edition internal label, has been donated as part of a raffle prize towards a music pod and disabled access facilities to Sir Robert Hitcham’s CEVA School in Framlingham, Suffolk.

“There is not another guitar like this,” Sheeran said. “This is the guitar that gets sent to me to check that all the other guitars are all right – it says prototype in it.

“To win this, it’s a £5 raffle which goes to charity. It’s going to build a music centre at a primary school near me, which I’m really excited about.”

Sheeran worked with Northern Ireland-based guitar maker George Lowden to create the signature instrument to mark his latest record.The singer-songwriter has also donated three signed Ipswich Town Football Club 2021-22 home shirts for three runners-up in the raffle. Meanwhile, Sheeran recently said he didn’t think ‘Love Yourself’ would be “as big” if he hadn’t given it to Justin Bieber. He co-wrote the single alongside Benny Blanco and Bieber for the latter’s fourth studio album, 2015’s ‘Purpose’.

During a conversation with Jack Antonoff about the tracks they’ve written for other artists, Sheeran explained: “I feel like the one that is the slam dunk, whenever I’m at a gig, to play someone else’s song that I had written would be Justin Bieber’s ‘Love Yourself’ because it was so massive for him.

“I think it’s his biggest song… anywhere in the world, if I picked up a guitar and played that, they’d be like ‘Oh my god, you wrote that!’.”

Sheeran recently released a festive collaborative single with Elton John, ‘Merry Christmas’. Proceeds from the track go towards the Ed Sheeran Suffolk Music Foundation and the Elton John AIDS Foundation.