Success Story Details

The Mellow Sounds of Success

If you attended the Caribana events at Harbourfront Centre in Toronto this past summer, you would have watched amazed as a group of children, playing for the first time, tapped out the rhythms and mellow sounds of the islands on the steel pans, expertly guided by Joy Lapps. 

Joy took her love of the steel pans, her experience as a camp counselor, her independent spirit and a little help from BACD and the Summer Company program and turned what, at first, seemed like a ‘long-shot’ into steel pan summer camps, workshops and lessons that were not only profitable, but fun for the kids who learned to play the steel pans - and for hundreds of people from Ajax and Toronto who attended their recitals and presentations.

Now studying for her second degree in Fine Arts, Joy gained a lot from her Summer Company experience – she learned how best to reach her market, how to manage her cash flow and business paperwork, how much she enjoys teaching others something she loves doing herself – and, she turned a healthy profit as well. In the process, Joy turned a few adults onto the steel pan experience, too.  Some BACD staff are now students in her fall/winter steel pan workshops.

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