The Ukulele Orchestra of Kamloops will be donating 30 ukuleles to Parkcrest Elementary to replace the 15 instruments lost in the fire last September.

Spokesperson Jeanette Scott says the desire to replace the instruments came up not long after the fire, and she says things just seemed to line up in the weeks and months that followed.

“Every year we do a Christmas concert and people make donations and we give them out to the community and this year we thought, ‘what better reason to raise money than to help the kids?’ she told NL News.

“And we had our Christmas concert and it did very well. We then had more donations rolling in afterwards and the club topped it up.”

In all, the club was able to raise $2,087.65 to buy a full set of ukuleles, instead of replacing just the instruments that were lost.

“We started thinking that 15 isn’t really a full class set and its hard to learn an instrument if you don’t have one in your own hands,” Scott noted. “So the members thought it would be good to raise enough money to buy a whole class set of 30.”

She says the ukuleles will officially be given to Parkcrest Elementary students on Feb. 24 at 1 p.m.

“We purchased the ukuleles from Empire Music in Vancouver and we are set to go,” she said. “We’ve been working with Christy Gauley at School District 73, and we’re all going to learn one song together – In the Jungle, so it should be a lot of fun.”

Photo via Wikimedia Commons