By Kim Katner | Managing Director
Dear GlobalGiving Supporters,
We are well into 2012 Instruments A Comin’ (IAC) project, and we are less than $1,500 away from meeting our goal! Thank you so much for your support to provide musical instruments to Greater New Orleans area schools. The Foundation has now been able to purchase way more than 100 new instruments!
In February, we delivered the bulk of the instruments to the schools. This month we will deliver to Edward Hynes Charter School. This school is in the process of moving back into their newly renovated facilities that were destroyed during Hurricane Katrina. Hynes is a K-8 school that has an enrollment of over 530 students and 56% of their students are enrolled in their music program, over 100 in the band. Hynes will receive 34 instruments from the Foundation: Clarinets, saxophones, trumpets, baritone horns, and snare and tenor drums.
Einstein Charter serves over 450 students in the New Orleans East area. They expanded their jazz band with the new instruments. At Einstein, the band class assembled in the band room after everyone helped to unload the new instruments. Einstein received saxophones, the new baritone sax taking center stage. The band leader led the class in a few musical pieces, providing a fabulous mini-concert for us. During Black History month they performed their first concert with the new instruments.
Pierre A. Capdau Charter School had a small marching band, but was able to expand to a full band in time to march in the Mardi Gras parades with their new instruments. The school received trombones, baritones, saxophones, piccolos, mellophones, sousaphones, three kinds of drums and marching cymbals. The band classes gathered and met us in the lunch room. When given the word by their Principal, they raced to their chosen instruments, opening every box and case, taking out each instrument with reverence. The excitement ran high and to not play the new instruments was impossible for these children.
Miller-McCoy Academy for Mathematics and Business is a charter school that opened in 2008 to address the academic needs of boys in New Orleans. The Foundation helped them to begin to equip a marching band in 2010. They received baritones and bass and snare drums from us this year. Miller-McCoy’s band had a successful Mardi Gras season, marching in many of the parades. A portion of their band also performed this past weekend at their Gala celebrating their first graduating class.
O. Perry Walker High School, another school who has benefited from the program in recent years, received marching drums to carry in the Mardi Gras parades. On our visit to O. Perry, we watched the students reverently cleaning and shining some sousaphones, clearly demonstrating pride and joy in their instruments, in their bands and in their selves. The smiles on the faces of these students remind us of why we do this. Your GlobalGiving donations are putting musical instruments into hands of children who would not otherwise have access to the benefits of musical performance.
With the current economic challenges that many non-profit organizations are experiencing, now more than ever, we depend on the assistance of thoughtful individuals like you to keep our mission alive. Once more, please accept our heartfelt thanks for your GlobalGiving contribution.
With warm regards,
Kim Katner
Managing Director
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