We Started a Fundraiser. Here's Why.

I've been reporting on what's happening to music education in Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools. Students at Clemmons Middle School are coming home and telling their parents that orchestra is being cut. Not scaled back. Cut. The district has not confirmed it. The district has not denied it. The district has not said anything.

I called them today. I left a message. There was no name on the voicemail.

Middle school orchestra is the feeder program. Cut it now and the high school orchestras die quietly in a few years — no announcement needed, no one to blame. The district is facing a $46 million deficit while sitting on the record of $75 million in administrative bonuses paid out in recent years. The paper ran out. The orchestra is next.

Music stands still open. Nobody told them to pack up yet.

So we started a fundraiser. Every dollar goes directly toward keeping these programs alive — instruments, instruction, and the pipeline that gives kids in Forsyth County somewhere to go with their talent. If you have a child in WSFCS, or a public school once put an instrument in your hands and told you that you could — this one's for you.