Richmond Teacher Digs Deep Into Own Pocket To Buy Music Equipment For His Students

Tim Wilson grew up in Scotts Valley, spent decades working in San Francisco, and now lives in Marin County. Yet when it came to choosing a place to start his career as a middle school music teacher, Tim chose Richmond.

It was not by accident.

Tim wanted to work in a community where many young people lack the advantages of their wealthier neighbors.

"I'm here to make a difference with what I think I can offer," Tim says.

What Tim can offer, it turns out, is quite a bit.

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Tim Wilson, who for two decades played trumpet for the San Francisco Opera until glaucoma forced him to retire, began teaching music at Richmond's DeJean Middle School in 2013

By his own estimate, Tim has paid for, out of his own pocket, somewhere between $50-$100,000 on music equipment for his students in a year-and-a-half of teaching.

Tim has purchased in the neighborhood of 80 guitars and amplifiers as well as a similar number of keyboards and drums, not to mention all the music stands and the other equipment necessary to stock a music department.

"I just bought what I thought we needed right there so I didn't have to deal with red tape."

While Tim's choice of teaching as a career is new, his love of music has been with him since childhood.

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Growing up in Scotts Valley, Tim was something of a trumpet prodigy. His talent found a home at the San Francisco Opera, where Tim played for two decades, rising to the position of primary trumpet. But in 2003, doctors told Tim that high pressure in his eyes had lead to glaucoma and that continuing to play the trumpet, which increased the pressure, was a recipe for disaster.

"That could lead to blindness early in life," Tim recalls a doctor telling him, "if you don't stop playing the trumpet."

So Tim stopped.

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The non profit, Little Kids Rock, provided Tim with training as a music instructor as well as thirty, free guitars for his classroom. Tim, though, was motivated to do even more. He wanted every student to have an instrument they could take home to practice.

For the next decade Tim focused on raising his two sons, but with both now having graduated college, Tim decided to give a new career, teaching, a try.

Tim arrived at Richmond's DeJean Middle School to find a music department, like many others, the victim of repeated budget cuts.

There were a handful of pianos to work with, Tim says but, "there were no resources to teach students the sort of music that they want."

Tim says he was fortunate to discover a non profit called Little Kids Rock. In addition to spending time showing him how to teach students music that was relevant to them in a way that would get them excited to learn, Little Kids Rock also provided instruments free of charge.

Tim was given thirty, free guitars.

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By his own estimate, Tim has purchased 80 guitars, as well as keyboards, drums, and other equipment totally somewhere between $50-100,000.

He was grateful, but still motivated to do more. Tim thought every student deserved the opportunity to take instruments home to practice, so he felt he needed more. He also felt that waiting until he could get those instruments through normal budgetary channels would take too long.

"I'll never get the resources these kids need by the time they are off to high school," Tim says. "That's not fair to them." It is because of those students that Tim decided to act quickly.

"He asked if he could purchase more instruments through us," says Jim Broadstreet, Regional Program Director for Little Kids Rock. Once they got the order, Jim says, the group was floored.

"We all spend money on our classrooms," Jim, also a teacher in Richmond, says,"but this was a whole new level."

Tim says he has been so busy trying to set up his classes with all the new equipment he hasn't had the time to sit down and figure out exactly how much of his own money he has spent so far. He says that, thanks to his pension from the Opera, he able to plow almost all of his teaching salary back into the classroom.

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