The Edmonds Music4Life program during the 2014-15 school year delivered 20 ready-to-play musical instruments to Edmonds School District schools for use by children in need. That’s according to a report from David Endicott, the program’s president and CEO, to Edmonds School District Superintendent Nick Brossoit last week.

The estimated total retail value of these instruments was $15,430.

“Some of these 20 instruments came to Music4Life as ‘undesignated’ by the donor for any one of our five participating school districts: Edmonds, Highline, Mukilteo, Seattle and Shoreline,” Endicott said. “In other words, the donor told us to use them ‘wherever there is the greatest need,’ and thus were reassigned to Edmonds School District.”

Resources from the Edmonds Music4Life fund were used to repair all instruments at local shops that provide discounts to the organization, including the Music & Arts stores, Kennelly Keys Music, Hammond Ashley Violins in Issaquah and the Guitar Center in Seattle.

“What this means is that the education of 20 students last year benefited from participation in instrumental music in Edmonds Public Schools,” Endicott told Brossoit. “Yet, as you well know, the arts often are the first to go when school districts face declining budgets and levy failures.”

In the past three months alone, Music4Life delivered another 17 musical instruments to Edmonds public schools with a combined estimated value of $20,370. “One of these is a very special violin now being played by a student at Edmonds-Woodway High School,” Endicott said. “So 2015-16 is off to a very fast start.”

Endicott noted that “participation in instrumental music is not cake frosting or a marginally-important elective subject. Research now shows that students who participate in instrumental music activities tend to do better in math, science, history, literature, international languages, reading, writing, even in computer science and other academic disciplines, in addition to what they learn in terms of teamwork and self-discipline.

“So Music4Life is just as much an ‘education program’ as it is an ‘instrumental music program.’ That is UNLESS students’ families cannot afford to get them a musical instrument. And in the current economy, many cannot even afford to rent an instrument.”