Historic Livingston County organ receives $30,000 in repairs thanks to community fundraising

By Elle Meyers

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    HARTLAND, Michigan (WWJ) — An organ in Hartland, Michigan, has received about $30,000 in repairs and restoration in recent years, thanks in large part to significant fundraising.

“It’s a chorus of angels,” said Don Thompson, who has served as caretaker of the organ for the last 30 years.

Thompson has been taking care of the Hartland Music Hall project by project, mostly on his own.

“The acoustics in the building are just about perfect,” he said.

It’s a Kilgen organ that sits inside the hallowed music hall. It was made in St. Louis in 1932, and Thompson calls it a jewel.

“The organ console is here, and in the back of the stage, there’s a room with 780 pipes in it,” he said.

It isn’t difficult to imagine just how much upkeep an instrument like this needs. Back in 2022, the organist who services Hartland’s organ began recommending some repairs.

“We asked him for a quote, what would it cost, and they gave us a number of $30,000, which we didn’t have budgeted and is a large number for something that we wanted to keep going,” said Sarah Neidert, director of Cromaine Library.

That kicked off multiple phases of fundraising. First, a grant from the Hardland Consolidated Schools Foundation.

“[Then] a concert as a fundraiser, and it was a wild success. We raised $12,000 to fund the second phase of repair,” Neidert said.

In that second phase of restoration, parts of the organ were removed from the building.

“The whole front was taken off, repaired, taken off-site, oiled and lubricated,” Neidert said.

The hope now, Neidert said, is that any repairs in the future will be smaller and the organ will continue to sing her song.

“Hopefully, it will be something we can fundraise for on a lower level to keep maintenance up,” Neidert said.

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