Donating Instruments to charity

ICBM

ROOG said:

I know this might sound daft but I'm just looking for a simple but somehow worthwhile transfer of "playable bottom of the range instrument of no more value than it needs to be usable" guitarness. I love that sentence ( credit to ICBM), it so sums up my guitar. 

It's worth a fair bit more than that - even these old low-end things have some vintage/nostalgia value nowadays.

ROOG said:

Sorry ICBM, I think I must have skipped by your post, that's sad regarding the school stuff. 

It is sad. Even an Eko Ranger won't stand up to it for that long. The basic problem is that the kids either don't care because the instruments aren't theirs, or actively don't want to be in the music class at all and deliberately vandalise them. The teachers don't have time to supervise properly let alone maintain them.

Today I collected about 20 guitars and basses from two schools - all are filthy, have broken jacks and pots, missing strings and knobs and some other parts, and are severely bashed about. I passed off as unrepairable four Yamaha classicals with big holes in the backs or sides - they're actually structurally ok so there's no real point anyway. I don't mean dents, I mean 2"-3" holes!

Music projects and charities are only marginally less destructive in my experience. Just don't donate anything even remotely nice in the hope it will be appreciated - it won't. The best thing they can do is sell it and buy more entry-level instruments with the money.

Sorry...

ROOG

Thanks for the heads up ICBM, is there a emoticon for dumbfounded?