A bright side of Coronavirus

Let’s look at the bright side (there’s not much) of this coronavirus health emergency.

One thing it’s doing for us is that it’s making quarantine time available to do some things that we wouldn’t have accomplished. Such as clean-up our garages, attics or closets. 

In the process, you may have come upon a long-unused musical instrument that can be recycled and put to use by some student in our public schools.

These instruments can be made available to Music4Life™, the Puget Sound non-profit that acquires musical instruments from adults who no longer need them.

The organization gets the instruments repaired, if possible, and provides them to ten participating public school districts for use by elementary-aged students of low income families.

Music4Life operates programs supporting Auburn, Bremerton, Edmonds, Everett, Highline, Kent, Northshore, Seattle and Shoreline Public Schools. Instrument donors understand that the highest and best use of their musical instruments is to put them back into play.

Students attending Shoreline Public Schools need some of these instruments, whether trumpets, clarinet, violins, cellos or otherwise. 

 “We’ve been told we’re one of the best musical instrument recycling programs around,” says Ken Noreen, Chairman of the Shoreline Music4Life Booster Club. 

“The reason this is so important is because research shows that students who participate in instrumental music programs do better in math, science, history, literature, computer science, international languages, reading, writing and other academic disciplines,” Noreen says. 

“This is in addition to what they learn in terms of teamwork and self-discipline.”

“All this is true, unless their parents can’t afford to get them a musical instrument in the first place. And in today’s economy, many parents can’t afford to rent a musical instrument. 

"To this extent, Music4Life is just as much an ‘education program’ as it is an instrumental music program.”

One recent national report found that half of all public school students are from income-eligible families that qualify for participation in the Free-and-Reduced-Lunch program. The Puget Sound area is no exception.

“Our hope is that adults who know about Shoreline Music4Life will donate their musical instruments to us now so we can get them repaired over the summertime,” Noreen says. “An instrument Donor Form that must accompany the instrument is available for downloading on our website.”

Music4Life™ is supported in part by grants from 4Culture (formerly the Seattle-King County Arts Commission); the Knossos Foundation; the Hazel Miller Foundation, various local Rotary clubs; the Auburn, Highline, Kent and Northshore Schools Foundations; as well as by the law firm of Preston Garvey; Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Theatre Group, Encore Media Group, Lamar Advertising (the billboard company), Classical KING FM 98.1, the Edmonds Center for the Arts.

Also Kennelly Keys Music stores, Ted Brown Music, Hammond Ashley Violins in Issaquah, Bigfoot Music in Arlington, the Guitar Center in Seattle’s U District and others.

For more information or to donate an instrument to Music4Life, contact DavidEndicott@Live.com , call 206-409-3275 or go to our website. Instrument donation forms are available online, as well as at designated instrument drop-off sites.