By Irene Moreno-Jimenez
Over the next few months, Ottawa schools will receive used musical instruments as part of a new program called ENCORE.
The ENCORE Musical Instrument Collection Program is an initiative by CAYFO (Child and Youth Friendly Ottawa), a non-profit youth organization, which works with the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board (OCDSB), businesses and the community.
Together, these organizations collect and distribute used musical instruments that are donated at one of the many drop-off boxes across the city. Once collected, the instruments are repaired and distributed by the Board according to the schools’ needs.
Daniel Gauthier, program coordinator for CAYFO, says he expects to collect around 100 instruments this month.
Gauthier says that instruments will be repaired by two organizations, St. John’s Music and Musicare Inc., as well as other people involved in the community.
“There are 150 schools involved and we have received responses from 30 already,” says Dale Taylor, arts consultant for the OCDSB.
This month, says Taylor, they will be receiving wish lists from the schools to determine where the instruments will be distributed at the end of spring.
Saffron Bianchini, instrumental music teacher at Glashan Public School, says that the school provides grade seven and eight students with instruments such as trumpets, flutes, clarinets, saxophones, trombones and baritone horns. She also says that more students are taking music classes and funds for the instruments are not readily available.
“More than three-quarters of the school population uses school instruments, there are little funds for repairs or replacements,” says Bianchini.
So far, Glashan’s wish list includes different types of clarinets, saxophones and flutes, which Bianchini says are instruments in demand.
Local businesses, like Les Suites Hotel Ottawa in Centretown, are also committed to this program.
The hotel has an instrument drop box in their lobby.
“Currently not all students are able to play an instrument because the school cannot provide enough and not all students can afford to purchase or rent their own,” says Steve Georgopoulos, general manager of Les Suites Hotel. “I get very excited when the community can help children who are our future leaders.”
The hotel has been accredited by CAYFO as one of the Ottawa child- and youth-friendly hotels.
Georgopoulos says the people who pick up the instruments and deliver them do so on a volunteer basis.
The hotel has already begun to receive instruments: a clarinet, keyboards, drums and a tambourine.
Georgopoulos says that initiatives such as this one help in the learning process and unite different organizations towards one common goal.
“Youth has high potential. If they have an organization they could belong to, such as CAYFO, it brings community, businesses and youth together,” Georgopoulos says.