More than $20,000 in donations have poured in to help a non- profit music program for underprivileged kids replace dozens of instruments that were stolen from its Cabbagetown offices earlier this week.
Thieves broke into the Cabbagetown Community Arts Centre on Parliament Street sometime between Sunday night and Monday afternoon and took 20 guitars, six violins and a large quantity of sound equipment.
The theft left the program’s immediate future in doubt but by Thursday afternoon more than $21,000 in donations had been collected through a GoFundMe campaign, enough for stolen instruments to be replaced.
“The money is fantastic. It really helps as we desperately need it but it is also the support and the emotion behind everyone who has been calling us and checking in with us. We are just so grateful to know that the community cares about us this much,” Executive Director Sarah Patrick told CP24.
The Cabbagetown Community Arts Centre provides one-on-one lessons to about 200 underprivileged kids during the school year and regularly lends out its instruments so those kids can continue to practice at home.
Patrick said that the break-in earlier this week was a “real blow” to the program as it left it with only two broken guitars and a handful of other instruments.
She said that the acts of goodwill that have followed in the days since the break-in have been “unbelievable,” though.
“Today when I arrived here a neighbour had come by and he had bought two brand new guitars for us and so they are right here and we are thrilled about that. The outpouring is quite something,” she said.
Patrick said that the suspect or suspects who broke into the centre earlier this week likely knew that it was a charity and decided to raid it of its instruments anyway.
Police continue to investigate the break-in.
“I think they must have been fairly desperate but I wish they hadn’t chosen a children’s charity,” Patrick said.
