366 Days of Hard Rock

If you run into Matt Houchin on any given day in 2024, don’t be surprised to see him sporting a Hard Rock Café T-shirt. In fact, he can guarantee it.

“I wanted to do something that nobody’s ever done before,” says Houchin ’03, who lives in Atlanta. “I have a lot of Hard Rock Café shirts and thought, ‘I could be the first person to ever wear [one] every single day for the entire year.’” With 2024 being a leap year, it’s a record that will not easily be broken.

Once Houchin established his “Hard Rock Shirt-a-thon,” he figured he should do it for a good cause. Houchin chose Free Guitars 4 Kids (FG4K), a charity that provides free guitars to kids in underserved communities. As of August, he has raised $15,000.

Houchin, creative media director at the sales consultancy Revlogic, has always loved music. When he was a student at Northwestern, he joined the University’s all-male a cappella group Asterik. “That’s probably my top Northwestern memory,” he says. “That was like my fraternity.

Working with FG4K gives him the opportunity to pass along the joy of music to other kids.

“Having a guitar as a teenager and learning how to play had a big impact on me,” he says. “The goal doesn’t have to be becoming a great singer-songwriter or anything like that. We’re just trying to impact kids’ lives for the better.”

Houchin is documenting his Shirt-a-thon on social media, where his videos have amassed hundreds of thousands of views. Learn more and follow Houchin’s progress.