Instrument donation from Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation helps two BPS arts programs

The Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation, a non-profit music organization, recently donated over $80,000 worth of musical instruments and supplies to two lucky Boston public schools— the Margarita Muniz Academy and the Orchard Gardens K-8 School.

Since 1996, Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation has been donating instruments to deserving, under-funded music programs and has been providing various support services to school districts around the country. The selection process for these donations is very thorough, and applications are by invitation only and are based on the financial need of schools.

One of the qualifying Boston schools, The Margarita Muniz Academy, located in Jamaica Plain, opened in 2012 and has since developed an El Sistema-inspired arts program. El Sistema is a publically funded music-education program and movement that began in Venezuela in the 70s. The goal of the program is to use music as a vehicle for social change.

“The program is totally barrier-free,” said Rebecca Frost, a band director at the Margarita Muniz Academy and the lead teacher of the El Sistema program. “Our students don’t pay to participate. There’s nothing that can exclude them from participating.”

Frost said that the donation her school received was valued at over $24,000 by Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation, with funding made possible by StubHub. 

“Through StubHub’s partnership with the Mr. Holland’s OpusFoundation, we are able to foster the next generation of talented young musicians through music education,” said Jeff Poirier, General Manager of Music for StubHub. “We are excited to donate over $93,000 worth of musical instruments to deserving students at two schools in Boston, the Margarita Muniz Academy and Orchard Gardens. You never know what budding music student may be destined for an arena stage.”

The donation itself included one saxophone, one marimba, five clarinets, seven trumpets, and some miscellaneous supplies for the students.

“Our students are playing on equipment now that they feel good about,” said Frost. “That’s motivating to them. That makes them want to do better, and that can help carrying them to the next level.”

As for the Orchard Gardens K-8 School, the school received a donation specifically for the string program as well as some supplies for the band program. The band program received a year’s supply of clarinet reeds in addition to alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, and bass clarinet reeds.

“I think that having better reeds is definitely going to help our overall sound quality,” said Joy Roster, a band teacher at Orchard Gardens K-8 School, “and just hopefully help students to appreciate the value of that little tiny piece of wood that requires so much care.”

In the end, Frost said that they just want students to be excited about music and passionate about music and passionate about the arts.

“It's really hard to do that without equipment that works,” Frost said. “This helps get them motivated and then helps them get passionate about what it is that they're doing.”