“For more than 20 years the La Crosse Symphony Orchestra has played on percussion instruments provided free of charge by the Onalaska School District,” writes Tobias Mann in Tuesday’s (9/12) La Crosse Tribune (Wisconsin). “Late last month, after two years of planning and three months of fundraising, the LSO returned the favor and delivered more than $60,000 of percussion instruments to the school…. Onalaska High School band director Robert Coe said the arrival of the new instruments was an exciting moment…. ‘We’ve always had to find and put together equipment we can use,’ ” said 15-year-old percussionist Henning Hanson. “The LSO briefly considered purchasing its own instruments or partnering with the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. That changed when the orchestra discovered the La Crosse Youth Symphony Orchestra also used the school’s percussion instruments, and the group decided it was only right to make the school whole again…. [In June] the orchestra raised nearly $12,000. $10,000 of that was matched by an anonymous donor. By the end of the three-month-long fundraiser, the LSO had raised more than $63,000.” Said LSO Executive Director Tracy Gaskin, “In my 12 years of working with the LSO, this has been my proudest fundraiser.”
Posted September 13, 2017
