Fiddles, Cellos and Basses - oh my!
We have such great news to share about instrument donations!
Thanks to many individual donors and shops, we will be able to get hundreds of instruments to Haiti this summer through the good offices of IFSI - Immigrant Family Services Institute-USA who will take care of shipping for us from Boston to Cap Haitian - Mèsi anpl!
These instruments will go to BLUME Haiti's partner programs throughout Haiti with special attention paid to the Ecole de Musique Nick Contorno des Gonaïves. Some of you might remember that this past September, I did a fundraising drive to help replace instruments at this school, lost to a horrible day of looting and destruction that happened as part of nation-wide demonstrations.
Thanks to the generosity of so many individual donors as well as The Guitar Center Foundation, Retrofret, Musical Instrument City, Southwest Strings, Zoran Stilin, Luthier, we will not only be able to replace a fair number of instruments for the Nick Contorno School we will also be able to send LOTS of instruments to programs across Haiti as well!
The heartbreaking immediate aftermath of the looting in the instrument storage room of our partner, the Nick Contorno Music School, Gonaives
Southwest Strings got it all started with a donation of 3 basses (!), 9 cellos and assorted violins and viola outfits. We get more requests for basses than for any other instrument so this donation is especially helpful.
Demitrio's warm smile and wide open arms says it all! Thank you Southwest Strings for this wonderful donation!
Then Zoran Stilin, a fantastic luthier and wonderful cellist originally from Croatia but who has been in Tucson for several decades, decided it was time for some shop cleaning with the result that an additional 9 cellos, many, many violins and violas, hundreds of bows and various tools are headed to Haiti - WOW!
Zoran and our friend Mari after loading the van for the second of 3 huge loads of instruments. Mari drove these from Tucson to New Mexico - thank you Zoran and Mari!
And the consolidated load, driven to Boston by my awesome nephew! The photo shows Zoran's donation along with music, tools, stands and supplies from many others - this will make so many people in Haiti happy and, for a short time, my garage is empty!
Thanks to our partnerships with Luthiers Without Borders, the UK branch especially, the Belgium based NGO Music Fund, the Naperville Rotary Club, and more, we have been able to train skilled repair technicians throughout Haiti for both string and wind instruments.
Learning the details of saxophone repair - Port-au-Prince, 2021
We are happy to accept instrument donations. If there is a clarinet in the back of your closet that you would like to have sing again in the hands of a child, let us know!
info@blumehaiti.org
