Students loading truck with instruments

The band departments in the Foothills School Division (FSD) are giving back!

Friday morning the staff and students at the Foothills Composite High School loaded instruments into a truck, taking them off to do bigger and better things.

The departments are joining with Edmonton's Music Missions Dominica to donate instruments to students in third world countries. The program sends the instruments to the WindShoppe in Edmonton where they are refurbished and sent off to school bands on the Caribbean island of Dominica.

The FSD is able to participate because it has had a highly successful band program since 1991.

"100% of the money the parents pay to the school so that students can rent instruments comes back to our music program. We are [then] able to purchase new instruments. But after a number of years we are repairing them too much that they cycle out of use, so those are the instruments that go down there," says music teacher, Nicole Hounjet.

"We were asked yesterday why [we] are we giving instruments and not food or clothes - I think for us, this is something we are able to give; this is something that we have to offer. Our students understand the benefits of music and what it brings to their lives. So to be able to share that with a place that isn't able to purchase instruments really teaches our students something about giving and the importance of music."

This program is giving these instruments a second life and providing students in a third world country an opportunity to develop a love for music.

 

All of the instruments being donated to Dominica