Desperately Needed Classroom Materials for Band Classes
My band students need 14 supplies, including woodwind reeds, valve oil and cork grease.
FULLY FUNDED! Mr. E.'s classroom raised $669
This project is fully funded
I have 5 middle school band classes that meet every day. I teach 6th-8th grade students. Our school is a low income, Title I school. We are a racially diverse, multilingual school. We have two immersion programs, and have over 35 languages spoken in school.
Our district, as with many districts, is facing severe a shortage of funds. The district does not fund the arts. Each school, if it chooses to offer the arts, must come up with the money through other avenues. Currently, what little funding we have comes from the PTA and "optional" elective fees. (Since we are a Title I school, many students cannot afford to pay this fee.) Our district owns some rental instruments, but the band program at our school has expanded in three years from around 40 students to over 120. We currently only have 80 instruments to rent, which forces some to rent from a music store which becomes quite costly. We also don't have the funding to buy the additional materials needed to play an instrument.
I am asking for instrument reeds, slide and valve oil, and instrument cork/tuning slide grease. These items are not a luxury, but a necessity to keep an instrument working. (In the case of reed players, reeds are a MUST in order to even play the instrument.) Students are given instruments at discounted rental fees, or in some cases, even free. The district can't afford to buy the additional materials, so students are forced to buy them themselves, which can be VERY costly.
Your gift will help us to continue to offer a vital part of a student's education -- a creative outlet in the form of music. Students must be given the opportunity to have a creative outlet. It wasn't math and science that took us to the moon, it was people thinking outside the box that got us there. Our program has seen tremendous growth over the past three years. So much so that it is difficult to keep up with. We have outgrown our classroom and performing venue, we don't have the music we need, and we can't afford the basic materials we need on a daily basis. All that being said, students show up day after day, eager to learn, eager to create, and eager to be a part of something larger than themselves.
More than a third of students from low‑income households
Data about students' economic need comes from the National Center for Education Statistics, via our partners at MDR Education. Learn more
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