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Victoria Mayor proclaims Music Therapy Awareness Month

Month kicks off with March 7 A Night Out For Music Heals involving more than 50 bars in 15 cities

March is Music Therapy Awareness Month, and the City Of Victoria has just made it official.

Mayor Lisa Helps and the City Of Victoria have offered a proclamation of March as Music Therapy Awareness Month. Listen Up Victoria, in partnership with Music Heals, collaborated with local music therapists to have the importance of music therapy recognized in Victoria.

Listen Up Victoria is a Leadership Victoria Community Action Project designed to raise awareness for music therapy in the Greater Victoria area. Through the month of March, Listen Up Victoria will be collecting iPods for the Vancouver Island branch of the Music Heals iPod Pharmacy, which collects good-as-new iPods and pairs them with new headphones from Skullcandy and iTunes gift cards and delivers them to music therapists for use with their clients.

Gently used iPods can be dropped off at Greater Victoria Public Library Branches, Vancity Credit Union Victoria Locations, Vancouver Island Long & McQuade Stores.

Kicking off the month, Saturday, March 7 marks the annual A Night Out For Music Heals. More than 50 bars, clubs and pubs in 15 cities across the country will be donating $1 from every cover charge for the night (or the equivalent of $1/patron, for those that don’t charge cover) to Music Heals. Proceeds from the evening will support music therapy programs in Canada. The hashtag for the night is #NightOut4MH.

Participating Vancouver Island establishments include Breakwater Café, Crooked Goose, Distrikt, Foo and both Pig BBQ locations

The Music Heals Charitable Foundation raises awareness of the healing powers of music and fundraises for music therapy across Canada. Its mission is to increase patient accessibility to music therapy in children’s hospitals, seniors’ homes, palliative care facilities, burn units, bereavement support, at-risk youth programs and more. Music Heals donated $250,000 to music therapy programs in Canada in its first two years in operation.