$15 million campaign launched by L.A. school district to support music instrument repair shop featured in Oscar-nominated film

The Los Angeles Unified School District Education Foundation announced Wednesday it will launch “The Last Repair Shop Fund,” a $15 million capital campaign to invest in the future of its previously unsung Musical Instrument Repair Shop, including a student apprenticeship program that will build the next generation of instrument technicians. The downtown workshop, founded in 1959, is the subject of Ben Proudfoot and Kris Bowers’ Oscar® nominated short documentary “The Last Repair Shop,” distributed by Searchlight Pictures and L.A. Times Studios, which profiles four of the twelve technicians who work every day to maintain over 130,000 musical instruments provided by the district to public school students. Los Angeles is the last major city in America to provide free and freely repaired instruments to its students. “Los Angeles Unified’s investment in music has produced some of the greatest luminaries in music for decades,” Superintendent Alberto M. Carvalho said. “This shop is one of the cornerstones of what makes Los Angeles the creative capital of the world. Ben and Kris’ film has created extraordinary excitement and support, and the time has come to call on forward-thinking leaders in this city to ensure that no child in Los Angeles who wants to play an instrument will ever be denied that opportunity.”