MusiCounts is thrilled to announce the recipients of the 2022 MusiCounts Band Aid Program! To celebrate our 25th Anniversary, we’re taking the celebration nationwide by diving deep into the program’s investment in each region of Canada, looking at both the impact we’ve made over time and the challenges we’ll tackle in the future.

The MusiCounts Band Aid Program will be awarding $119,000 to 12 schools in Atlantic Canada in 2022! The deserving recipients are listed below. Over the course of 25 years, MusiCounts has invested $1,885,000 to 198 schools in Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island.

Many of these schools are dealing with a problem that plagues schools nationwide: aging, non-functional instrument inventories and the lack of funding available to update them. Schools simply do not have the resources they need to offer sustainable and inclusive music programming to students. In many of the applications we receive, we see schools barely getting by with decades-old musical instruments, and applicants often note that students struggle to find confidence when playing on instruments that don’t enable them to sound their best.

In Atlantic Canada, the average annual music budget among recipient schools this year is just $56. The majority of the schools receiving grants in this region indicated they have no annual budget for music programming. The investment of a MusiCounts Band Aid Program grant is an opportunity to make a decisive step forward - a nice improvement from struggling to keep up!

Lake Melville School in Northwest River, NL will be using their MusiCounts Band Aid Program grant to replace the school’s 10+ year old brass instrument inventory and purchase additional percussion instruments. Their music program will celebrate their unique local cultural connections: both the Innu and Inuit traditions in Indigenous drumming, and the brass bands brought to Labrador by the Moravians as far back as 1771.

MusiCounts is so proud to have contributed to the success and sustenance of music programming in the Atlantic region, but there is still so much to do. After 25 years of making investments through the MusiCounts Band Aid Program, we’re still only able to support 1 in every 5 schools that ask for our help. It will take a chorus of music education champions to help close this gap. Click here to learn about MusiCounts’ 25th Anniversary and help us raise funds for the MusiCounts Band Aid Program.

• Lake Melville School, Northwest River, NL
• We'koqma'q Mi'kmaw School, Whycocomagh, NS
• Chebucto Heights Elementary School, Halifax, NS
• Trenton Middle School, Trenton, NS
• Shipyard Elementary, Sydney, NS
• Pictou Landing First Nation School, Fisher's Grant, NS
• Hillside Park Elementary School, Lower Sackville, NS
• Princess Elizabeth School, Saint John, NB
• Beaconsfield Middle School, Saint John, NB
• Stanley Consolidated School, Stanley, NB
• Hubbard Elementary, Oromocto, NB
• Inglewood School, Grand Bay - Westfield, NB