Red Lake Elementary’s music program recently received a $2,000 AXS TV Band Together Grant through Paul Bunyan Communications to provide students with digital music activities.

AXS TV’s Band Together For Music Education initiative awards grants to school-age music education programs across the country that demonstrate top leadership, instruction and participation as well as a strong need for further funding and support, a release said.

Selected teachers can use the grant to purchase music, repair instruments or buy new ones, update or replace performance equipment or address other needs the program may have.

Red Lake Elementary serves over 600 children from Early Childhood through fifth grade. Students in Pre-K through second grade receive music instruction every other day. Currently, students in grades 3-5 do not have musical instruction and this grant will go toward providing digital music activities for those students, the release said.

“Music education is such an important part of childhood development, with benefits that have been proven to stay with young people throughout their lives,” Anthony Cicione, president of entertainment at Anthem Sports & Entertainment, said in the release. “AXS TV is proud to join forces with Paul Bunyan Communications to award this grant to Red Lake Elementary through our ‘Band Together’ initiative, and we are glad to know that it will be useful to them in helping to open up the music program for all of their students to enjoy.”

“We’re excited that AXS TV selected Red Lake Elementary School for this ‘Band Together for Music Education’ grant,” Paul Bunyan Communications Marketing Supervisor Brian Bissonette said in the release. “Our cooperative has a long history of supporting music and the arts in the communities we serve and have proudly offered AXS TV to all of our PBTV HD customers for many years.”