KPL’s instrument lending program hits the right note
‘It’s a great opportunity for kids to figure out what in music might inspire them’
KITCHENER — A harmonica wailed in the main hall of a crowded library. Nobody scowled or demanded quiet. Instead, applause and the occasional hoot of approval as Canadian music icon Jim Cuddy and former Blue Rodeo bandmate Bob Egan — now the Kitchener Public Library’s community development manager — strummed guitars as Cuddy crooned “5 Days in May” on a Monday morning in July.
This is the newfangled, modern library. Harmony has replaced silence. It’s OK to play a tune here and jam. After all, thanks to a new KPL program announced by Egan and funded by Sun Life Financial, you can now borrow one of 150 musical instruments donated by Sun Life with your trusty
old library card.
This is not your grandfather’s KPL. It’s not even your mayor’s KPL, at least not the Queen Street branch that Berry Vrbanovic remembers from his youth.
“When I was growing up, this was a place where, if you did anything like this, someone would have been here and shut you down — shhhhhhh! — really quickly,” said Vrbanovic, who sat at Cuddy’s left during a media conference announcing that Sun Life’s musical instrument lending library program had arrived in Kitchener-Waterloo. “It’s just fantastic.” Cuddy, the musical guest of honour brought to town by his old pal Egan, even donated a guitar to the Kitchener program.
Nothing fancy. But Cuddy did sign the body.
“It’s just a standard Gibson dreadnought guitar,” Cuddy said. “I think it will go well with the rest of the collection.”
Guitars, ukuleles, violins, drums, bongos, portable keyboards. If you’ve got a KPL card, you can sign those instruments out of the main branch.
Cuddy figures youth will benefit most.
“Without this huge investment of buying or renting a guitar, they can try something out. They can see what they’re like,” said Cuddy, who got his first guitar when he was 10.
“Maybe they move to the mandolin. Maybe they move to violin. I think it’s a great opportunity for kids to figure out what in music might inspire them.”
Sun Life, with its Canadian head office in Waterloo, has already set up musical instrument lending library programs in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and Calgary.
“It’s been incredible,” Paul Joliat, Sun Life’s assistant vicepresident of philanthropy and sponsorships, said of the program’s success.
“Most of the instruments, if not all of the instruments, have been loaned out within 48 hours after launching it.”
So the instruments could be signed out quickly in Kitchener as well. A musical instrument donation drive, which will include a presence at the Uptown Waterloo Jazz Festival from July 21 to 23, will run into August.
The KPL is now in the booming business of lending out noisemakers. Can the Dewey decibel system be far behind? Who knows.
“We need to be transitioning and transforming all the time,” KPL chief executive officer Mary Chevreau said. “We believe this initiative is going to have a profound impact on the people in this community.”
And that impact could resonate over decades.
“These instruments last 25 to 30 years,” Cuddy said. “This program could go on and on. Who knows how many lives it will change? But it will change lives.”