Heaven couldn't wait, as it turned out.

The little Phoenix girl wanted to play the clarinet, but Emily Bruso, her teacher in the Washington Elementary School District, did not have an instrument she could use.

Enter Ear Candy Charity, which just that day had notified Bruso that it had the clarinet, flute and trumpet that she had requested.

The charity has been running a campaign on the website www.indiegogo.com/earcandy to drum up support for its donations. It had raised more than $6,110 as of Thursday but has set a goal of $25,000 by Sept. 15.

It plans to launch what it calls Online Instrument Drives on Sept. 17. Donors can give as little as $5 to the program in a process known as "crowd sharing."

"I love sharing music ... and want to make an impact," said Ear Candy Charity founder Nate Anderson.

He is neither a musician nor a non-profit organizer. Instead, he is an entrepreneur with a love of music. He came up with the name "ear candy" after making music CDs and labeling them "Nater Tots" and other whimsical names.

"It's fun, it's playful, it's for kids," Anderson said.

Ear Candy has arranged the donation of 15,000 instruments since the program began about four years ago. But the logistics have stymied the program's success.

That's why Anderson and his two partners are taking the program online.

The online instrument-sharing site will match donors with teachers who need instruments for students.

"The harsh reality is so many students have to sit on the sidelines," Anderson said. "A lot of schools have had to cut their music programs."

The charity used to collect instruments at more than 80 fire stations in Avondale, Glendale, Scottsdale, Phoenix and Tempe.

But that left teachers in other cities out of luck when it came to collecting or donating musical instruments.

Ear Candy wants to harness the Internet to link music donors with children who need instruments. But it needs money to pay for the instruments to be shipped to and fixed at an instrument-repair school in Castle Rock, Colo.

Donors can share stories of their instruments and who played them as part of the website.

Perla Rodriguez, a band teacher at Valley View Elementary School, recently received four flutes from Ear Candy.

"Without them and the community, a program like ours wouldn't survive," she said. "We make do with what we have because our parents can't afford to buy instruments for their kids."

The school's band has won awards in contests in California.

Denis Alvarez, a 13-year-old eighth-grader, said she is lucky to own her own clarinet to play in the band. Most of the school's 400 students must share the school's 79 instruments.

"The students who don't have instruments, they can't be in the band," Denis said. "I had a friend who wanted to join band but couldn't because there weren't enough instruments."

A native Spanish speaker, Denis said she believes music has helped improve her reading and math skills.

Fellow student Adrian Garcia agreed and said he doesn't know what he'd do if he couldn't borrow a trumpet from the school.

"It helps me with reading, and I like playing the trumpet a lot," he said.