The North Island Festival of Performing Arts has received a big boost from the Royal Bank of Canada.
Through the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC)’s Emerging Artists Support Project, the bank has donated $5,000 toward supporting North Island performers and increasing the ability to send talented Island youth to the Performing Arts Festival of British Columbia — the Provincials — which will be held in Kelowna this year, the North Island Festival of Performing Arts (NIFPA) explained in a press release.
The arts are one of the priorities of the RBC Foundation, which has donated about $160,000 in the North Island, explained Valerie Girard, manager of the South Courtenay Branch.
The non-profit NIFPA — which puts on an annual festival for students in the Comox Valley and surrounding communities to perform before audiences and adjudicators in a variety of disciplines — offers performing arts students financial assistance in the forms of awards.
This gives the performers the ability to further enhance their knowledge base in their discipline, as well as generate opportunities for further learning at local and provincial levels, according to NIFPA.
“NIFPA will be able to extend this opportunity to more performers because of this gracious donation,” it stated.
RBC’s financial assistance will help NIFPA support more students and will also help on an administrative level, as facility rental costs have increased, adjudicators’ travel expenses have increased, and government funding has decreased, according to the release.
“This generous donation from RBC will also help ease the financial shortfalls that the festival has endured during this slowed economy, in turn allowing our students to remain involved in performing arts and to be involved in growth opportunities, as well as embracing the fine arts culture,” stated NIFPA.
This year, the North Island Festival of the Performing Arts takes place Feb. 8 to March 3 at the Sid Williams Theatre in Courtenay.
Programs are available to download and print at www.nifpa.org.
writer@comoxvalleyrecord.com