Music teacher Dan Yarr had a problem: He had 12 aspiring flautists and only two flutes. So Yarr held a lottery to pick who got to play; the students who didn't had to skip instrumental music.

In the public schools of Seattle, where Yarr teaches, it's the same story every year: There aren't enough instruments for all the students who want to play. "The need is severe at some of the schools," he says. With a good student clarinet costing $400, and a violin renting for $20 to $40 a month, "many families simply can't afford to rent an instrument."

In 2007, Dick Lee, director of the Office of School Partnerships for Seattle Public Schools, approached David Endicott, a member of the Rotary Club of Seattle, to enlist Rotary's help in acquiring instruments. Over coffee, the men dreamed up Music4Life, a campaign to acquire 1,200 donated instruments over two years. "Lovingly used" instruments would go to fourth and fifth graders, who can take half an hour of instrumental music instruction every week.

Recalling his own student days, Endicott says that playing the tuba opened up a world of music to him. "In putting that tuba in my hands, he gave me something to do," he says of his childhood music teacher. "We really want to build this for every child who wants to learn to play an instrument."

Over the last year, the campaign has raised $45,000 and collected 125 instruments, including a saxophone from American jazz and blues singer Ernestine Anderson. Bill Center, past president of the Seattle club, donated two violins and a viola that his daughter-in-law had abandoned long ago. And another donor dusted off a trumpet his father had played in the Army during World War I and that he'd used from second grade to high school.

Music4Life is a collaboration between Seattle Public Schools, the Northwest Youth Music Association, and RI District 5030 (Washington, USA). But other clubs can easily duplicate the initiative, Center says.

"Learning how to play an instrument is really learning how to learn," says Center, a retired U.S. Navy admiral who plays an electric wind instrument. "It develops your  mind and develops the way you think about the world.