Thanks to a frenzy of Facebook posts and an observant Pinson resident, the East Limestone High School band trailer containing $250,000 worth of equipment that was stolen from a Birmingham hotel parking lot early Sunday has been recovered.

Larry Calhoun, a former band parent from Pinson Valley High School, was driving home from breakfast Sunday morning when he noticed a band trailer parked in an industrial area on Coosa Street in Birmingham. He didn’t think much of it until he pulled up his Facebook account later that day and saw a plea for information about a stolen band trailer. The original post had started with the band booster’s marketing director, Pam Stapleton, and was shared 9,000 times, bouncing all over the country before eventually ending up on Calhoun’s feed.

“Larry called me at 6:30 p.m. and told me that he had seen our trailer,” band parent Amy Payne said. “I was so anxious that the trailer might disappear again that he actually drove back to the site where he first saw it to make sure it was still there.”

By that time, an officer from the Birmingham Police Department was on the scene.

“From what we can tell, most everything is in tact, except for a generator and some missing flutes,” the school’s band director, Jennifer Janzen, said.

The Ford F250 used to pull the trailer had significant damage to the steering column, and the radio was missing. Band parent Jeff Abernathy, owner of the truck, traveled to Birmingham yesterday to retrieve the truck and trailer.

Janzen and her students will do a full inventory once the trailer is returned to them.

In the hours between the theft and the recovery of the trailer, the community rallied behind the band. Athens Arts League launched an instrument drive, and the band’s YouCaring funding page was inundated with $3,354 in donations. Band programs from as far away as Gulf Shores reached out to Janzen, offering to help her replace the stolen instruments. Local schools did the same.

“The support was overwhelming, absolutely overwhelming,” Janzen said. “The way people got behind us was beautiful. It made me cry.”

The contents of the trailer were not insured, so the band will use the donated money to replace the stolen generator and flutes. Limestone County Superintendent Dr. Tom Sisk explained that the school system extends liability collision insurance to the band as a courtesy, but the cost of full coverage would be prohibitive.

As for the donated instruments, Janzen said that they will offer to give them back. The rest will be rented to students whose families cannot afford to buy instruments.

Lt. Sean Edwards, public relations officer with the BPD, said the case is still under investigation and that they “don’t have any real leads at this point.”