The Dream Serenade Summer Bursary has closed for the 2024 season.  Thank you to everyone who helped to make this year such a success: social workers and school staff partners, Dream Serenade donors, concert goers and auction bidders whose contributions helped raise the funds and of course, all the families that these bursaries will support.  

Updates on the 2025 Dream Serenade Summer Bursary will be posted here and on our social media pages.

2024 Bursary Summary:

This year's Bursaries were distributed in two streams- one through recommendations by local social workers and the second by public online application. We continued to build on last year's success of working with social workers to identify families in our community that could most benefit from a Summer Bursary and focused on congregated schools as well as schools supporting larger Developmental Delay Intensive Support Program student populations. In this first round of Bursaries, we were able to distribute 115 bursaries thanks to the help of 33 TDSB social workers. The public application further connected 55 families with a Bursary via lottery selection. In total, 170 Summer Bursaries were distributed this year supporting families at 51 schools across the Greater Toronto Area.

2023 Bursary Summary:

In 2023 we were able to support more families around the GTA than ever before with our largest distribution of funds to date! A total of 200 $500 bursaries were distributed to families across the city, reaching 60 different schools. In an effort to reach the people most in need of support, we worked with 59 social workers who helped identify families who could most benefit from a Dream Serenade Bursary- 104 bursaries were distributed through social worker nominations. We also maintained the public application so families could apply online for support, as in past years; 96 bursaries were distributed through our online application.

2022 Bursary Summary:

There was no concert in 2021 which meant that we used all of Dream Serenade's reserve budget and relied heavily on the donations from our CanadaHelps page to help continue a limited scope of our year-round programs. The money raised here went to fund 25 Family Relief Bursaries based on nominations from 7 congregated school social workers who connected us with families most in need of support. 

2021 Bursary Summary:

In the Fall of 2020 the concert went virtual and all proceeds went towards continuing this COVID Family Relief Bursary program. Thanks to the generosity of donors and our virtual show audience, a record 246 bursaries (reduced to $300) were distributed to 84 schools in the GTA, with 239 of these bursaries going to families who had never received a Dream Serenade bursary before! 

2020 Bursary Summary:

In Spring 2020, Dream Serenade created the COVID Family Relief Bursary to better meet the needs of the community during a very challenging time. The new Bursary was able to provide support to 144 families at 55 schools across the Greater Toronto Area, and distribute 36 x $50 Food for Kids vouchers.