Legacy Children’s Foundation partners with Bowtown Music to help lower income families
Ali Bolichowski has always had a passion for music.
But for the fifteen year old, growing up with a single mom and two sisters meant costly instruments and music lessons were out of reach.
Melissa Bolichowski, Ali’s mom, says all her daughters are very creative.
“I thought it would be great to be able to put the kids in some sort of music lessons, but affordability with being a single parent was really hard,” she says.
When she was about 10 years old, Ali had yet to realize her dream of taking music lessons.
Thanks to a partnership between Bowtown Music and The Legacy Children’s Foundation of Alberta, Ali started weekly guitar lessons at the Bowtown studio free of charge.
Since 2006, The Legacy Children’s Foundation has been covering the cost of lessons and providing kids with instruments to learn and practice on while they are in the program.
“I was really happy,” Ali says of the day she found out she was going to start taking lessons. “I wanted to take lessons for a really long time, and then I was able to.”
Kuba Suttles, co-founder and co-owner of Bowtown Music in Calgary, says he can’t imagine what it would be like if someone like Ali had never been able to take lessons.
“It’s so important in her life,” Suttles says.
Suttles has been Ali’s guitar instructor since she first started at Bowtown, and he says the changes he’s seen in Ali reach beyond her guitar playing.
While she was once quiet and serious, Suttles says Ali is much more outgoing.
Ali says she is confident that she will continue with her music.
“I’d like to record my own songs, write songs and perform,” she says. “And just make people happy through music.”