50 trombones handed out to honor Parkland school shooting victim
Parkland, Fla. — Fifty special trombones have been given out to band students throughout Florida in honor of a teenager who died in the Parkland high school shooting.
The South Florida Sun Sentinel reports that $50,000 worth of the instruments were awarded Saturday in honor of 14-year-old Alex Schachter, who was a trombone player in the marching band at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
Alex was one of 17 people killed by a gunman at the school in February 2018.
The instruments are engraved with a motif combining Alex's name and a trombone. The money was raised in part by other students playing music on street corners and intersections over the past few months.
Alex's father, Max Schachter, says because of the gift, he's "blown away."
"To see Alex affecting all of these kids [with] his love of music expanding all across the state ... it's unbelievable," he told the Sun Sentinel.
One 12-year-old student received a trombone Saturday, but also gave back to the cause. Benjamin Collin Hobschaidt played his trombone on a street corner for a couple of hours Friday night and raised more than $300 for the Alex Schachter Scholarship Fund, the newspaper reported.