If you want to play in a band, you have to have, well, instruments.  And instruments are what D.C. Virgo band director Cameron Bolish did not have-until a local businessman gave him and his students a little help.

 

Bob Moulton, CEO of National Pawn, donated 100 gently used band instruments to D.C. Virgo Preparatory Academy.

 

D.C. Virgo recently re-opened last fall after it was shut down in 2011 due to budget cuts and poor student performance.

 

When Bolish started teaching at Virgo in the fall of 2012, he had no instruments to work with.

 

“I had an empty band room,” he said. “I had an absolute empty box.”

 

At the beginning of the school year, each Virgo student was issued an iPad. Bolish used apps, like GarageBand, to teach his class. Three weeks into the school year, Bolish received Moulton’s donation of over 100 band instruments.

 

“We’ve been blessed,” Bolish said.

 

“I was overwhelmed by the need,” said Moulton, who owns nine pawn shops in Raleigh, Durham, and Wilmington.  Before donating to Virgo, Moulton donated over 800 instruments to schools near Raleigh, his hometown.

 

“Since we had a store in New Hanover County, we decided to expand it,” he said.

 

Though charitable giving is an excellent way to advertise a business, Moulton’s primary goal was, and still is, to help people. “We’ve donated different items to various charities,” he said. “It’s all based on what I needed when I was a kid.”

 

Aside from helping local band programs, Moulton also wants to put a better spin on the pawn industry.

 

“Pawn shops have such a negative stereotype because of the way they’re portrayed in the movies,” he said.

 

According to Moulton, some people associate pawn shops with crime, when, in reality, the shops are great places for people to sell items they don’t need anymore, or to save money on large purchases, like band instruments.

 

When Moulton was in middle school, he wanted to play in his school’s marching band, but his family couldn’t afford to buy him a new instrument. Instead, his mother bought him a $15 clarinet at a yard sale.

 

“It was old and beat-up, but it played alright,” Moulton said. Later, his mother bought him a nicer instrument-a $50 clarinet from a pawn shop.

 

Years later, in 1987, Moulton opened his first pawn shop in Durham. “It was like any other start-up business.  I worked for free for a while,” Moulton said.

 

In 1990, Moulton opened a second shop, and before long, he owned stores in three counties. His success allowed him help community members in need.

 

“100 instruments have a $15,000 value,” Moulton said. He looks forward to helping more children participate in band during the 2013-2014 school year.

 

“I fully plan on giving 400 instruments to the school systems this year,” Moulton said. “I’ve been collecting all year.”

 

However, some instruments are more difficult to obtain than others.

 

“We seem to get a lot of flutes and clarinets,” Moulton said. “It’s harder to get trumpets. Saxophones are harder to get as well, probably because they’re so expensive.”

 

Moulton encourages people to sell musical instruments that they’re no longer using to his pawn shops. For more information on National Pawn, visit http://pawndeals.com/index.php/about/locations/