Instrument Donation
SoundLocal partners with local music stores to make donating an instrument quick and easy, and to make sure your donation does the most good. Drop off a used instrument at a participating store, and we'll place it with a school that needs it or put its value to work for students.
How It Works
Bring It In
Bring your instrument to a participating music store during regular business hours.
Quick Check-In
A store team member takes your contact information, plus a few details and photos of the instrument. You'll be in and out in just a few minutes.
Get Your Receipt
You get a drop-off confirmation email right away. Your official 501(c)(3) SoundLocal Foundation receipt follows by email.
We Handle the Rest
We place your instrument with a school that needs it, or put its value to work for students.
Can't make it to a store? Email instruments@soundlocal.org and we may be able to help facilitate a pickup.
A Smarter Way To Donate
Most programs collect instruments and wait. The result is a warehouse with 500 used flutes waiting for a school to need a flute, while ten schools down the road need a trumpet today. What people donate rarely matches what students need, when they need it.
We start with what students need. Every donated instrument takes one of two paths.
Placed. If a school needs your instrument, we have it cleaned and repaired to playable condition and place it with that school.
Converted. If no school needs it right now, we find it a new home with a musician who'll play it, and what it brings in goes toward what students need most. Often that's a different instrument: your flute becomes the trumpet a school has been waiting for.
Either way, the instrument in your closet turns into music in a classroom.
What We Can Take
Nearly everything: band and orchestra instruments, guitars and basses, drums and percussion, keyboards, amplifiers, and related gear like cases, stands, and bows.
Your instrument should be playable, or repairable at a reasonable cost. Tarnish, worn pads, old strings, and scuffed cases are all fine.
What we can't take:
- Used mouthpieces, reeds, and similar items. For health reasons, we can't pass these along.
- Instruments with cracked or broken bodies, serious water or mold damage, or missing major parts.
- Toy or novelty instruments, acoustic pianos and organs, and items that aren't instruments or music equipment.
- Donations with conditions, such as a requirement that the instrument go to a specific school.
Not sure about your instrument? Email a photo to instruments@soundlocal.org first, and we'll let you know!
Why We Partner With Music Stores
Music stores know instruments. At each participating store, trained staff check in your donation, record its condition, and photograph it, so every instrument is documented from the moment you hand it over. And when an instrument needs a little TLC before it reaches a classroom, who better to restore it than the people who repair instruments every day?
You also get a drop-off spot with real hours and real parking, not a mystery warehouse across town.
Donation Drop-Off Locator
Instrument donation drop-off locations in Maryland.
Chuck Levin's Washington Music Center
11151 Veirs Mill Rd, Wheaton, MD 20902
(301) 946-8808
Mon, Wed, Fri 10am-9pm; Tue, Thu, Sat 10am-6pm; Sun closed
Tell the staff you're donating to SoundLocal.
Get directionsOther Ways to Help
Prefer to give financially? Your gift supports SoundLocal's programs.
Music teacher looking for instruments? Apply for Support.
Run a music store? Partner with Us.