Most of what people ask.

We have never asked a family for money and we are not set up to take any — we do not handle money at all. The instrument is free.

Moving is the honest exception. A guitar we can carry. A piano needs professional movers, and somebody has to pay them: a mover who donates the job, a volunteer with the right van, or a neighbor who settles the bill directly. We look hard for that somebody. Sometimes we do not find one, and then we tell you quickly instead of leaving you hoping.

No. There is no application, no income check and no paperwork. We ask for a name so we know who to write back to and a town so we know how far the delivery is. If you feel you need us, that is enough.

If we already hold what you need, days. If we have to go and find one, it is usually a few weeks and can be longer for a specific instrument. We will tell you honestly which situation you are in rather than leaving you waiting.

We service what we can before it goes out, and we tell you plainly what is still wrong with it. A sticking key or a set of pads is a repair, not a reason to say no.

Tell us and we will collect it and pass it on. There is nothing to pay back. The only thing we ask is that it does not go back into a closet for ten years.

Usually yes. We work with a technician and a great deal is fixable. What we generally cannot use is water damage, a cracked soundboard, or an instrument that is past economic repair — and we will say so rather than take it and quietly scrap it.

No — and please do not let a student try. We arrange professional, insured movers, and we do not ask you to pay them.

How it gets paid for varies. Sometimes a local mover donates the job; sometimes a volunteer with the right van can do it; sometimes somebody in the community settles the bill directly with the mover. The money never comes to us, because we do not handle money at all. If we cannot find a way to move a particular piano, we will say so rather than leave you waiting.

No, and we want to be straight about it: we are a student-run project, not a registered charity. We cannot issue a receipt and nothing you give us is tax-deductible. What you get instead is being told where it ended up.

Yes, and we consider it part of the deal. We will not share a family’s private details, but we will tell you what happened to your instrument.

About a year of playing. There is no audition. Twenty minutes of something you can play comfortably is worth more than five minutes of something difficult — you are playing for company, not for a grade.

A room people already gather in, and someone on staff to let us in. If you have a piano, we will use it. If not, we bring a keyboard. There is no cost.

Thirty to forty minutes of music, usually on a weekend afternoon, and then the students stay to talk to whoever wants to talk. The talking is not an add-on; for a lot of residents it is the part that matters.

That is the whole design. A single visit is a nice gesture; the fourth visit is a relationship. We ask students to commit to the same residence more than once.

Always. A parent or guardian chaperones every visit — students are never in a residence on their own, and never without an adult who came with them.

Yes. Performances happen inside care facilities, so we require written consent from a parent or guardian for any student under eighteen before they can be booked. Permission to appear in a photograph is a separate question, asked separately.

Service hours, which schools count. But the thing worth having is less measurable: you spend years being taught something, and this is where you find out it is worth something to somebody else. Most people do not learn that until much later, if at all.

High school students, mostly. Adults help with the things that legally need an adult — driving, signing agreements with a residence — and otherwise stay out of the way. The searching, asking, carrying and playing are done by teenagers.

New Hampshire and Massachusetts. If you are just outside that, write anyway — the answer is usually yes.

No. We take instruments and time, and nothing else. It keeps the accounting at zero and the motives obvious.

Students watch local listings, estate sales and community boards, and we ask directly. A lot of what we place was never advertised at all — somebody heard we existed and remembered the piano in their mother’s living room.