NEW ORLEANS– Just about every time you see or hear one of our great high school bands in town, you’re looking at a group of young people that have benefited from the Tipitina’s Foundation.
The foundation’s annual Instruments a Comin’ benefit is Monday night at Tipitina’s and includes a free outdoor festival, followed by a ticketed concert inside and an incredible auction.
Co-Founder Mary von Kurnatowski spoke to us about the foundation and the fundraiser, “The mission of the foundation, the mission statement says it’s all about the preservation of the musical culture, her in New Orleans and South Louisiana. This is the 16th year we will have doing Instruments a Comin,’ and I would say over those 16 years now a lot of the schools lost all their instruments during Katrina, so we basically had to start over. I would say upwards of 25 maybe closer to 30,000 school children junior high school and high school bands have played on an instrument provided by the Tipitina’s Foundation.”
As for the auction von Kurnatowski says,”I love the auction. This is my favorite part of the event. The first it was just an indoor concert, and I had worked with other charity organization. I knew an auction was a way to make a lot money for your project. Every year it’s grown. It’s amazing. It’s open to the public. It starts at 6 o’clock with the outdoor festival. Every year we have great art, we have some wonderful hotel stays. I’m proud to say that the arts in our community band together, we have every museum in town that’s donated a package. Just a great variety of things, something for everybody, jewelry, and you can bid online you don’t even have to go to the event, the bidding is up right now and going on.”
For information on Instruments a Comin’ click here
To bid on the auction items, click here