Drive puts music back into young hands

AUSTIN (KXAN) - If old musical instruments are lying around the house, they can be put to good use. There is a big donation drive Wednesday to help students who lost everything in Hurricane Ike.

“There is a middle school in Galveston called Central Middle School that lost all of their music equipment during the Hurricane,” said Theresa Jenkins, executive director of the Recording Academy in Texas. “They lost a half-million dollars worth of equipment.”

That is why the Recording Academy has organized a musical instrument drive at their headquarters at Penn Field.

“We are making it our mission to assist them in the recovery process,” said Jenkins. "We really want to put these instruments back in the hands of children."

At Gott Music in South Austin , owner and professional tuba player Geno Gottschall wanted to help get instruments back in the hands of students.

“I wrote back and said, 'I don't know about donating instruments, but I can donate time and repairs,'” said Gottschall.

Every instrument that is donated will go through his shop to make sure it is in tune.

“We can pretty much fix anything,” said Gottschall.

Any musical instrument will be accepted, even a baby grand piano.

“We are going to take the Gibson bus and do a caravan to Galveston on Jan. 15,” said Jenkins. “The school district is going to meet us there with a big pep rally. We are going to give all donations to them at that time.”

The musical instrument donation drive is from 10 a.m. until 8 p.m. Wednesday at the Recording Academy in South Austin . They will also accept sheet music and donations through the first part of January.