Awards

Shine bands are known for their participation in regional and national Musicfests. Shine bands have achieved national recognition at Musicfests in Ontario and Quebec, Shine’s two senior jazz bands achieve gold and silver standings regularly at Musicfest Canada. Shine students are encouraged to apply for Musicfest awards, and have won several awards in recent years.

Trips
Shine cultivates and facilitates student experiences through travel. Innovative fund raising techniques such as the “Aeroplan donation program.” were pioneered as a creative way of paying for air travel. The Aeroplan donation program benefits both students and kind individuals that donate their Aeroplan points in return for charitable donation tax benefits. Shine students are able to focus their attention on practicing and school work rather than labor intensive fundraising campaigns such as selling chocolates, oranges or other  fund raising schemes. The patron receives a cash equivalent of cashing in their points in the form of a tax write off. 30,000 Aeroplan points results in a $750.00 write off. Some patrons have donated up to 100,000 and received a rebate of over $1000.00 more at tax time. The money the Canadian Government deducts from the tax bill for 30,000 Aeroplan points (50% of the donation or $375.oo) is often greater the price of a seat to a destination the equivalent amount of points could be redeemed for. Patrons actually profit financially from donating to Shine while students can focus on what they are at Shine to learn, music and see the world through the kindness and cooperation of people with foresight.

Scholarships & Discounts
Shine takes its mentoring role to promising musicians very seriously. Every year Shine provides scholarships on merit for senior high school students in the form of free tuition and scholarship application support. Shine also encourages students to mentor younger, less experienced students by providing discounts to their fees while mentoring. Older students enjoy the teaching experience and younger students mature musically with mentoring. All mentoring, as with all teaching, is supervised by Shine staff.