2026 Bursary Summary:

Dream Serenade’s Summer Bursary program continues to grow thanks to our community's support. This year, a record 300 bursaries have been distributed to families across 95 TDSB schools — the largest number of bursaries in the program’s history — helping students access camps, activities, caregiving support, transportation, equipment, and meaningful summer experiences.

A major part of this year’s Summer Bursary impact came through our collaboration with TDSB social workers. In total, 53 social workers participated with us to help identify and recommend 183 families who could most benefit from additional support, with a focus on congregated sites and schools supporting larger Developmental Delay Intensive Support Program (DD ISP) student populations.

The public application also saw tremendous interest, with 340 families applying for support. Through a lottery process, 118 families received bursaries through the public stream.

Since the test program rollout in 2018, the Dream Serenade Summer Bursary has now supported 1,515 families!  A beautiful reflection of the community support that has allowed this initiative to continue expanding its reach year after year. Thank you!

2025 Bursary Summary:

Thanks to the overwhelming success of Dream Serenade’s 10th anniversary concert, we were able to distribute a record 280 Summer Bursaries to families at 72 TDSB schools — our largest distribution to date!

As in previous years, Bursaries were distributed in two rounds: Round One involved collaboration with 33 TDSB social workers from 42 schools, focusing on students most in need of support from congregated sites and schools supporting larger Developmental Delay Intensive Support Program (DD ISP) student populations. These social workers recommended 127 families for support. Round Two invited families to apply through our public online application open for the month of May. From eligible applicants, 153 families were selected by lottery. 

We are so grateful to the Dream Serenade community for helping us reach more families than ever before!

2024 Bursary Summary:

This year's Bursaries were distributed in two streams- one through recommendations by local social workers and the second by public online application. We continued to build on last year's success of working with social workers to identify families in our community that could most benefit from a Summer Bursary and focused on congregated schools as well as schools supporting larger Developmental Delay Intensive Support Program student populations. In this first round of Bursaries, we were able to distribute 115 bursaries thanks to the help of 33 TDSB social workers. The public application further connected 55 families with a Bursary via lottery selection. In total, 170 Summer Bursaries were distributed this year supporting families at 51 schools across the Greater Toronto Area.

2023 Bursary Summary:

In 2023 we were able to support more families around the GTA than ever before with our largest distribution of funds to date! A total of 200 $500 Bursaries were distributed to families across the city, reaching 60 different schools. In an effort to reach the people most in need of support, we worked with 59 social workers who helped identify families who could most benefit from a Dream Serenade Bursary- 104 bursaries were distributed through social worker nominations. We also maintained the public application so families could apply online for support, as in past years; 96 bursaries were distributed through our online application.

2022 Bursary Summary:

There was no concert in 2021 which meant that we used all of Dream Serenade's reserve budget and relied heavily on the donations from our CanadaHelps page to help continue a limited scope of our year-round programs. The money raised here went to fund 25 Family Relief Bursaries based on nominations from 7 congregated school social workers who connected us with families most in need of support. 

2021 Bursary Summary:

In the Fall of 2020 the concert went virtual and all proceeds went towards continuing this COVID Family Relief Bursary program. Thanks to the generosity of donors and our virtual show audience, a record 246 bursaries (reduced to $300) were distributed to 84 schools in the GTA, with 239 of these bursaries going to families who had never received a Dream Serenade bursary before! 

2020 Bursary Summary:

In Spring 2020, Dream Serenade created the COVID Family Relief Bursary to better meet the needs of the community during a very challenging time. The new Bursary was able to provide support to 144 families at 55 schools across the Greater Toronto Area, and distribute 36 x $50 Food for Kids vouchers.