Recent Articles in ‘Stories’
Generous donations support kids in need #vansunkids
By Gerry Bellett On Tuesday morning, the doors of Captain James Cook Elementary will be opened early by principal Dan Knibbs who will be there to serve the school’s first breakfast — an inaugural event and the culmination of Knibbs’ desire to at least do this much to alleviate hunger in his school. “I’ve wanted
From a single story comes profound change #vansunkids
By Shelley Fralic The one thing a newspaper reporter learns within minutes on the job, and even more so after years in the trenches, is that the power of the press can turn a single story into a profound agent of change. In the fall of 2011, The Vancouver Sun learned about the plight of
Strathcona’s backpack program gets a $30,000 boost #vansunkidsfund
By Gerry Bellett The uninitiated arriving at Strathcona Community Centre on Thursdays would wonder if they had entered the right building, the place being awash in food, knapsacks, and volunteers sorting and packing fruit and vegetables. Community centres host a variety of programs, including those that make you sweat. But none – except here at
Burnaby school tries to beat odds to feed kids #vansunkids
By Gerry Bellett It doesn’t take long for Marilyn Kwok’s voice to falter when she describes just how hopeless it feels, wanting to feed 40 children breakfast with resources that can only manage to feed about five. Simple arithmetic dictates that 35 must go hungry. It’s mathematics colliding with compassion and it brings Kwok –
Sun readers put Surrey family back on its feet after fire #vansunkids
By Gerry Bellett On Tuesday, the following email arrived at The Vancouver Sun’s Adopt-a-School website from Susan McCuaig, principal of Betty Huff elementary, a school located in Surrey’s troubled north end. “ … We have many vulnerable families in our community and one endured a fire in their apartment Monday and they have no insurance.
Adopt-a-School: Vancouver power couple pitches in to help school #vansunkids
By Gerry Bellett Captain James Cook Elementary principal Dan Knibbs was stunned when he heard that his longed-for program to serve breakfast to hungry children will receive $60,000 from Carole Taylor and her husband Art Phillips. “It’s fantastic. It’s such a huge commitment on their part. I just can’t say what it will mean to
Donation turns holiday hardship into joy for Strathcona children #vansunkids
By Gerry Bellett and Gillian Shaw Most kids look forward to their Christmas school break. But for some of Vancouver’s most impoverished children, it’s not a time of joy and laughter but a time of anxiety and hunger, as the holidays stretch out with no prospect of a hot lunch at school or a breakfast
Bridging the gap: Students learn how little it takes to make a difference #vansunkids
By Daphne Bramham Last fall, Julie Takahashi was not only inspired to do something for the children at Admiral Seymour elementary school, she inspired a whole school to help. What began as a one-time fundraising event has evolved into something more and because of it, the kids at West Vancouver’s Sentinel high school are learning
Vancouver’s Sidoo family steps in to ensure Selkirk Annex gets its playground #vansunkids
By Gerry Bellett St. George’s student Jordan Sidoo sold $4,000 worth of pen sets over the last two weeks so some time in February 73 elementary school children in East Vancouver will get a new playground. Lord Selkirk Annex had applied to The Vancouver Sun Children’s Fund for a $7,800 grant to erect used playground
Best Buy, Future Shop gifts of iPads, computers and cash bring joy, laughter and tears #vansunkids
By Gerry Bellett It was the same in both schools Friday morning — the kids cheered and the principals wept. The tears, however, were of joy, and the cheers? Well, kids know a good thing when they see it, and strangers walking in laden with new computers is obviously a safe bet. This conflict in
Adopt-a-School: Britannia’s needs are elementary #vansunkids
By Gerry Bellett It’s an unpalatable fact likely to upset middle class sensibilities, but affairs are so dire at Britannia elementary when it comes to clothing its needy children that used underwear is gratefully accepted. “Yes, as long as it’s washed and clean we’ll take it,” said Jim Lemoine, the school’s neighbourhood staff assistant, who
Adopt-A-School: Forsaken children find a new beginning #vansunkids
By Daphne Bramham Every child matters even when they’re in high school and on the cusp of becoming adults. There’s this assumption that somehow big kids don’t need as much as little ones. But that’s so entirely wrong. Kids who needed hot breakfast and lunch programs from kindergarten to Grade 8 don’t stop needing them
Adopt-a-School: Captain Cook in dire need of food #vansunkids
By Gerry Bellett When principal Dan Knibbs surveys his students trooping into Captain James Cook Elementary each morning, he knows that of his enrolment of 343, 165 struggle with English and 35 struggle with various disabilities. What he can’t put his finger on is how many are hungry. Even if he could, he can’t much
Adopt-a-School: No shortage of bright kids with big dreams #vansunkids
By Daphne Bramham Three boys pull on a rope, backing up, backing up, until it won’t go any further. Two of them drop the line, but one keeps tugging with all his might. It doesn’t budge. “It’s not a tug of war,” one of the Grade 4 boys tells his classmate from Florence Nightingale elementary
Community rallies to make December special at east side Vancouver school #vansunkids
By Janet Steffenhagen Members of the community have rallied again this year to make December a special month for children at Seymour elementary school on Vancouver’s east side. The festivities began during the first week of the month with the annual Skate with Santa event and pizza party at Britannia rink, hosted by the CIBC
‘Their stomachs need to be full’ In New Westminster, feeding kids is part of a ‘wraparound responsibility’ says the superintendent of schools #vansunkids
By Shelley Fralic It starts early, at 7 a.m., well before the school bell rings. Car doors slam, and light chatter fills the cold morning air as they line up from the front doors of the school and down along the concourse outside the still-shuttered classrooms. They do this once a month, on a Wednesday,
Adopt-a-School: Canucks icon Trevor Linden scores with inner-city school #vansunkids
By Gerry Bellett The largest collection of Canucks jerseys seen so far this fall were one the backs of kids and teachers stuffed in the gym of Surrey’s Mary Jane Shannon elementary in honour of Trevor Linden, who came to the school Thursday to support The Vancouver Sun’s Adopt-a-School campaign. Most of the shirts sported
Adopt-a-School: Inner-city school struggles to replace condemned playground #vansunkids
By Gerry Bellett With so many needs it’s hard for an inner-city educator like Lorraine Terretta to put a new playground at the top of her wish list for help from The Vancouver Sun’s Adopt-a-School campaign. “I understand all the political stuff around asking for a playground,” said Terretta, acknowledging the instinctive hesitance donors might
Breakfasts in jeopardy without more funding #vansunkids
By Gerry Bellett The pots are lined up early — peanut butter, jam down to the dregs, marmalade, cheese whiz, margarine and, lastly, cream cheese — choose any two. There are small cups of milk, a plate of cheddar cheese slices, and some thinly cut apples — toast was coming. All in all, the humblest
Adopt-a-School: Instilling pride in culture and heritage enhances learning #vansunkids
By Daphne Bramham Sir William Macdonald Elementary is a small school in transition; a place where different ideas are being tried to ensure that some of Vancouver’s most vulnerable children have the best possible opportunity to succeed. Macdonald is the first urban school in B.C. to be designated as an aboriginal-focused school. Like other Vancouver
Adopt-a-School: For many kids, spring break is no fun #vansunkids
By Daphne Bramham Spring break for many kids means a trip to Disneyland or Whistler or going to one of the many kid-friendly attractions around the city, whether it’s bowling or Science World. But for others, it’s a lonely, scary and often hungry time. “School is the centre of the universe for many children and
Adopt-a-School: Wesbild offers scholarships to Coquitlam alternative high school #vansunkids
By Gerry Bellett For principal Paul McNaughton, the hardest part of saying goodbye to students like 19-year-old Michelle Adams was contemplating how they would fare in the unforgiving world outside his Coquitlam alternative secondary school. Nobody attends CABE if they are knocking it out of the park in life or academics. Alternative school is a
Adopt-a-School: Income disparity at the root of Canada’s ills, and problem is growing worse #vansunkids
By Stephen Hume She never wore the fashionable outfits her high school classmates affected and she was never at the local diner where we hung out after class. “Chores,” she said. Then, one day, she just wasn’t there at all. Maybe prom with all the flaunting of finery was just too daunting. For those without,
Adopt-a-School: Kids learn to survive, and thrive, in the kitchen
By Gerry Bellett Their electric frying pans are filled with vegetables and Project Chef’s Barbara Finley is extolling the virtues of patience while cooking to 31 Grade 4-5 kids in Hastings Elementary, who hang on her every word. “Being patient — that’s the hardest part of cooking,” Finley tells them. “Have you seen the way
Adopt-a-School sets example for assistance
By Patti Bacchus, Chairperson, Vancouver Board of Education Over the past year and a half, several Vancouver schools have been inundated by the generosity of The Vancouver Sun and its many partner organizations and donors. The support pouring into our schools has been nothing short of incredible. Some schools have benefited from monetary and
Adopt-a-School: Moberly elementary faces unique challenges
By Gerry Bellett Unlike some Eastside Vancouver schools, Walter Moberly elementary, with its predominantly South Asian population, neither needs an emergency breakfast program nor hot lunches for its 490 students. What this school lacks isn’t calories but the means to get its children – mostly from non-English speaking families – to the point where they
Adopt-a-School: Moms get their hands dirty to help out
By Gerry Bellett Dr. Barbara Fitzgerald has had thousands of conversations with children in the Downtown Eastside during her career as a developmental pediatrician and the context is generally as grim and bleak as poverty itself. But the conversation some weeks ago with a six-year-old who eyed her fearfully in a small office in Seymour
Adopt-a-School: Vancouver Rotary Club feeds hungry kids at Norquay elementary
By Gerry Bellett A few years ago there was a feeling within the Vancouver Rotary Club that perhaps it was time to redirect its charitable energies to something other than providing breakfast for hungry children attending east Vancouver’s John Norquay elementary school. “We’d been doing it for a long time and some people felt we
Adopt-a-School: Henderson Annex needs help with technology, pre-kindergarten progam
By Gerry Bellett At first glance, Henderson Annex and its 100 or so elementary students doesn’t appear to fit the profile of a designated inner city school in Vancouver. The school on East 54th near Fraser Street isn’t in one of the city’s troubled neighbourhoods where children are exposed to the full glare of rampant
Adopt-a-School: Need for breakfast program soars in Surrey schools
By Gerry Bellett This time last year, the Surrey school district had eight elementary schools using its Attendance Matters program, where the prospect of a free breakfast was a magnet to get some families to send their children to school every day. The program was partly funded last year by a $32,000 donation from The
Adopt-a-School: Colliers stepped up to help fill empty bellies
By Gerry Bellett The last sausage disappeared just before 9 a.m., carried off in triumph by a Grade Sixer as the last of things usually are by kids for whom being either the first or the last in anything produces its own magic. That the solitary sausage was there at all was thanks to Colliers
Adopt-a-School: CIBC Wood Gundy delivers philanthropy without fanfare for inner-city schools
By Gerry Bellett It almost defies belief that a downtown office of just 55 people has been the prime provider of hot breakfasts and other services for poor and needy children in Vancouver’s east-side elementary schools for the past 17 years. Since 1995, staff in CIBC Wood Gundy’s office in the Bentall Centre have put
Adopt-a-School: Zajac Ranch introduces inner-city kids to the great outdoors
By Gerry Bellett There they were, 27 Downtown Eastside kids standing in the wilderness near Stave Lake trying to comprehend it all. The Zajac Ranch — essentially a large clearing among the trees — is at the end of a logging road with potholes and one-vehicle bridges well north of Mission. And for these children-of-the-concrete,
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