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L.A. Unified’s famed ‘Last Repair Shop’ for students’ musical instruments just got tuned up, with a $1 million donation and a visit from the world’s most famous cellist.  

The beloved shop, which was featured in an Oscar-winning short documentary last year, repairs students’ school instruments across the district: taking in, fixing up and and sending back school pianos, tubas and drum sets on a daily basis.

It’s been operating for 65 years, and now the shop needs to raise $15 million to ensure it keeps functioning well into the future, said Ben Proudfoot, who co-directed the Academy Award-winning documentary about the shop and co-chairs its fundraising campaign. 

This month, the Chuck Lorre Family Foundation gave the shop a big start on its ambitious goal, with a $1 million gift. 

And to celebrate, cellist Yo-Yo Ma visited and played a couple riffs at a party held in the shop’s slightly ramshackle, downtown L.A. warehouse digs.  

“That’s the thing with this particular project, it’s hard to argue with,” explained documentary co-director Proudfoot, who is also campaign committee co-chair for the repair shop’s fundraising efforts; and why it attracts such support. “It’s just really an important thing.”

And the shop itself, a windowless warehouse encircled by a security fence, is due for an upgrade. 

Surrounded by blocks of choking traffic and not so far from skid row, the shop’s entrance is marked by a pair of fireproof doors and an unassuming sign reading  “Musical Instrument Repair.”

Many people had no idea about the shop, and even those who used it didn’t quite grasp its significance, said Proudfoot. 

But what stood out to him was that it was the last of its kind. 

The country’s second-largest district is the only one left where students could have full access to music education without spending their own families’ money, Proudfoot said. That’s in part due to the repair shop that keeps their instruments working.   

That’s a big deal for a school district where about 80% of students live in poverty.

Proudfoot said music education is important for all students, not just the ones particularly wealthy, lucky, or skillful.

“You learn discipline, you learn to listen, you learn you play a part in a whole,” Proudfoot said. “There are so many great lessons in music education.”

But Proudfoot said he noticed immediately why the shop needed help. There weren’t enough employees to cover the work. Only a dozen district employees were tasked with repairing and maintaining about 130,000 school instruments.

Amid the pandemic, L.A. Unified used federal relief money to purchase roughly 32,000 new musical instruments for students. The repair shop was busier than ever. 

With many employees on the verge of retirement, the shop needed publicity to bring in skilled technicians or job seekers willing to learn. 

So, Proudfoot and co-director Kris Bowers decided to put their filmmaking skills to use to help the shop. The plan worked, with the documentary garnering massive national attention — and also winning an Oscar.  

Now the pair is helping with fundraising for the shop. Proudfoot said 90% of the money raised will go to apprentice programs to train the next generation of repair shop workers.

As an extra incentive to get big donors, sections of the repair shop can be named in their honor or for their loved ones. 

The Chuck Lorre Family Foundation was the first to make a donation; now a new sign in the repair shop reads “The Lorre Family Strings Department” in honor of their donation. 

That $1 million is more than all of the other donations thus far combined, and will allow the district to begin training the next generation of repair shop workers. 

To make the celebration even more spectacular, the students and faculty got a visit from cellist Yo-Yo Ma, who underscored the shop’s importance. 

“The young people that are getting these instruments, they will probably see the world in the year 2100,” Ma said at a party held at the shop, where he also played music with students. “We may not see that world, but we can help make it possible that world is actually a good world.” 

Proudfoot said the best part of fundraising is seeing small donations from over 30 states where people have no connection to the shop, but feel compelled to help in any way they can. 

Those small donations, added to the $1 million, have brought the total to $1.7 million in less than a year. 

Proudfoot said Ma was no different, and getting him to come to the event was as simple as showing him the documentary about the shop. 

“We told him, ‘Do you want the little girls in this film to have a violin or not?,’” Proudfoot said. “If you do, then you gotta show up. That’s our campaign.” 

This article is part of a collaboration between The 74 and the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.