Star Weekly is looking back at the best stories of last year and this is one of them.
For over a decade, free music program Crescendo has been providing Laverton P-12 college students with additional musical learning opportunities, but its director said now after all these years it will have to be discontinued.
Since 2012, Erica Rasmussen has been running the program using philanthropic funds, grants and donations, receiving no government funding.
Unfortunately for the students, she has not been able to raise the funds required to continue into 2024.Without an influx of cash the program will finish up at the end of the year.
“It has got to the point where I can’t sustain the program with the funding that I have, to continue to run it for this number of children we have,” she said.
Ms Rasmussen said the children benefit from learning in a big group but she can’t afford to take on any new students.
“I like to have a group of more than 80 kids, we have enough instruments which have been donated over the years and I have a good team of teachers.
“In order to give these opportunities to new students we need $150,000 and $100,000 to keep it at the size it is.
“The ratio at the moment is one teacher to eight kids, it is a group learning environment which has huge benefits for our kids.”
While Laverton P-12 College is funded through the Music In School program and does run music classes and instrument lessons, it does not run orchestral instrument lessons.
The after school program is run mostly for kids from refugee families who may not otherwise be able to afford to learn orchestral instruments.
“We are not only teaching these kids to learn an instrument or how to play music, they are also learning to work as a team and build tolerance and trust,” Ms Rasmussen said.
“For a lot of the students English is not their first language, so the kids all learn at the same level making them feel really good about themselves.”
She said the whole school community was saddened to hear the news that the program may not be offered next year.
“I am just devastated, we’ve been going for a long time so it’s not an easy decision to make at all, it’s very disappointing.”
