Annual Instrument Drive Looking To Help Students Get Into Music

SARTELL (WJON News) -- The Sartell Music Association is looking for your help. The Association is holding its annual instrument drive on May 22nd from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. at the Sartell Middle School.

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People can donate their used instruments which will then be cleaned and repaired. Music Association President Katie Johnson says Al Asmus inspects the instruments on site and then the association pays for any repair work needed which are usually fairly basic:

"So like re-padding on woodwind instruments. Sometimes there are terrible dents in some of the brass ones. Most of the brass need, like a good, what do they call it, a chemical cleaning where Al takes everything apart and bathes the instrument and gets all the gunk out but a lot of the instruments have been sitting around for quite a while."

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She says once fixed the instruments will help students who want to participate in the school's music groups but might otherwise not have been able to:

"We're hoping that this will help so that if somebody has, like really wants to try orchestra but maybe their family either doesn't really know about orchestra or isn't too keen on the idea that this will give them the possibility to at least try it without having to have the funds to go through the normal rental programs if they can't.

Johnson says if people have an instrument but can't make it on the 22nd they can drop off instruments at the Sartell Community Center until the end of May as well.

The association is looking for monetary donations to help cover the cost of the repairs too. Last year they received 14 instruments and it cost over $800 to repair all of them.

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