Music is a community builder. Actually, there is a program I should make you aware of that you need to tell both those organizations about.
Through MusiCounts we've always been focused on the classroom primarily, but last year we started a brand new program with TD Bank, which is all about creating opportunities for after school programs. It's called the MusiCounts TD community music grants program.
It's open right now. We'll actually give grants of up to $25,000 to organizations that want to create a transformational opportunity in their community through music. We provide musical instruments and equipment. We don't provide the space or the teachers to do it. They need to make that commitment. That's an aside for you. Make sure they apply. May 9 is the deadline.
Music is an incredible community builder beyond the classroom within the communities themselves.
In Winnipeg during the Juno Awards we had two grant recipients there through the TD program, one of which runs an organization called Status4. He's actually a friend of Minister Glover's, who used to work with her. His name is Kevin Gibson, and he actually works with the Winnipeg Police Service.
A few years ago he was on the beat and he noticed that he was picking up a lot of the kids over and over again for petty crime and drugs and things like that. He thought that pulling them into the station wasn't helping. So he thought he needed to create an opportunity for these kids and to find a place for them to go where they would feel comfortable and safe and, more importantly, engaged.
He contacted city hall. He found what was virtually a derelict building, a little community centre which he took over. With his own carpentry skills and his own hard work, he created a very small program called Status4 Inc. He encouraged neighbourhood kids to come check it out. It was music, and he had some guitars there. Over the course of a couple of years, he's built that up. He applied for one of our grants. We gave him a $25,000 grant with which he purchased, I think, 20 guitars, keyboards, a drum kit, bass amps, you name it.
He currently has 85 kids in that program. It's about to double to about 160 in his community. The crime rate in that area has dropped significantly. He attributes that very much to the fact that he has given these kids an outlet to go to. I don't want to say that all young kids are criminals either, by any stretch, but it does provide an opportunity.
A lot of studies show that it's between 3:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. that kids get into trouble. This opportunity gives these kids a place to go. This new program is funding organizations like that right across the country. It's very different from the classroom work we do through Band Aid. To see what these people are doing in their communities is amazing. They are saints.
We're the conduit to bringing money into a program and giving it to these people, but when I say these people are saving lives, truly they absolutely are.