Help keep our kids fed, warm and learning
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
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
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
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
Adopt-a-School: Best Buy donates musical instruments, bringing rock’n’roll to Burnaby school
The well-to-do can wear jeans full of holes but for a poor boy jeans ripped almost to the crotch and held together by pins and embarrassment are a stigma, not a fashion statement. “It was
Adopt-a-School: Technology ignites a passion for learning in both kids and teachers
By Daphne Bramham The Smart Board in Kathryn Mazzone’s classroom is indistinguishable from one of those ubiquitous white boards used in offices to scrawl meeting notes — until she powers it up. As the white
Adopt-a-School: Grouse Mountain elevates young spirits
By Gerry Bellett Later this season Grouse Mountain pass-holders will be asked for donations of warm clothing and footwear — new or slightly used — to help clothe children throughout Metro Vancouver for whom winter
Adopt-a-School: Beating back poverty a boon to education
There’s a certain surreal quality about an elementary school principal sitting in her office fretting over where she might get a good deal on beds, of finding some company to give her a break on
Adopt-a-School: Wishing Tree finally starts to deliver
When they painted the Wishing Tree in the main hall of Queen Alexandra elementary school some years ago it was for children to place wishes in the foliage as if affixing their heart’s desires to
Vancouver Sun’s Adopt-a-School program has inspired unexpected positive side-effects and quiet acts of kindness
Last year’s Adopt-a-School campaign officially ended on Dec. 31, but four and a half months later, on April 19, two gymnastic instructors arrived unannounced in The Vancouver Sun’s newsroom with a thick bundle of $20
Adopt-a-School: Teacher Carrie Gelson says next step, looking beyond immediate needs of poor kids
By Janet Steffenhagen The staggering generosity of strangers was transformative for a little school near the Downtown Eastside last year, but the teacher who triggered that outpouring with an open letter to the people of
Child poverty is not going away, Adopt-a-School launching for a second year
By Gerry Bellett, Vancouver Sun Last year’s Adopt-a-School campaign exceeded all expectations and raised close to $800,000 in cash donations and matching funds and a substantial amount of goods and services for inner-city schools struggling against
Bed-bug bites, hunger: Learning is hard enough without the distractions of poverty
By Daphne Bramham, Vancouver Sun Little kids shouldn’t come to school pocked with bed-bug bites. They shouldn’t turn up yawning after spending another sleepless night because their bed was the floor or was shared with
Inner-city school food deliveries switch to centres for summer
When Jim Duggan dived head first into helping poor inner-city families receive fresh fruit and vegetables, he didn’t realize how fathomless is the pool of want. Inspired to help by The Sun’s Adopt-a-School stories describing
Guests asked to give to The Sun’s Adopt-a-School campaign in lieu of the traditional gifts
No wedding is complete without joy and, in the minds of many, an abundance of gifts – the china, silver and whatnots that convention and affection deliver. Today when Dr. Brenda Lau and her fiance
Private donor helps needy families with free fresh produce
Jim Duggan only experienced hunger once in his life. And once was enough. “I was just a kid, and I have never forgotten how it felt to have no food in the house – the
Support for hungry kids brings David Sidoo full circle
David Sidoo is wealthy — Google will supply all details — a success story well chronicled by the business press, which love to put six or more figures behind names. And yet on Monday when
Vancouver’s Colliers adopts Hastings elementary school
by Gerry Bellett, Vancouver Sun What does it to take to adopt an entire school? Colin Scarlett and Colliers International are about to find out. In response to The Vancouver Sun’s Adopt-a-School campaign, launched late
Surrey breakfast program gives kids food for thought
By Gerry Bellett In September, the Surrey school district took the hesitant step of providing a breakfast – of sorts – to almost 600 hungry children in eight inner-city schools where the poverty rate in
Letter from Kevin Bent, Publisher: Thank you for supporting children in need
There are times when being publisher of The Vancouver Sun is especially gratifying and none more so than now when I am able to announce that our Adopt-a-School campaign raised $270,000 in donations – all
Breakfast is now being served: Thunderbird elementary schoolkids get healthy start to the day
by Gerry Bellett, Vancouver Sun Three months ago Thunderbird elementary school principal Henry Peters surveyed his little flock and wondered how he’d shepherd them through a cold and hungry winter. Emergency food coupons — kept
Teacher’s simple plea turned into a campaign so successful that it’s not going to stop here
By Gerry Bellett There are times when a small cry for help is the pebble that starts an avalanche. On this eve of Christmas, who would have thought that in September when inner-city teacher Carrie
Group of professional mothers reach out; Friendship circle works with inner-city teachers to identify those in need of help
By Gerry Bellett A month ago Dr. Joanne Roussy of the University of B.C.’s medical school would not have known how to negotiate the mean streets of the Downtown Eastside, but here on a wet
The truth about child poverty: B.C. has had the highest rate in Canada for eight years
Children are going to school in Metro Vancouver without food, without shoes, without winter coats or mittens. Some are tormented by bedbug bites; others with head lice. The stories are as heartbreaking as they seem
Schools in need: Morley Elementary is a safe haven for refugee kids
“Compassion before curriculum” is never likely to make it as a school motto given what the institution of education is all about. But it might well describe Burnaby’s Morley elementary. Morley’s a school – the
Cycling club raises almost $5,000 from pot-luck fundraiser
When Donna Begg and Sharon Kreutzer read teacher Carrie Gelson’s open appeal on behalf of the children in her inner-city school class-room, they mobilized their entire cycling team to help. “After I read Carrie’s letter,
Telus continues drive to finance Adopt-A-School, now through YouTube video
Tune in to Telus’s annual fire log video spoofand your view will send $4 to kids in need in British Columbia. It stems from an age-old tradition. Every year around this time, there are people
London Drugs toy tour brightens up lives of families experiencing tough times
When the school bells ring today signalling the start of Christmas holidays, it will be a joyful time for many kids. Not so for students who are going home to places where there is not
The United Nations of Burnaby; Byrne Creek secondary has students from 70 different countries
Byrne Creek secondary could be the poster child for the growing ethnic diversity of the Lower Mainland. “The families in our community come from over 70 different countries,” says the school’s principal, Dave Rawnsley. “We’ve
‘We’re walking on air,’ school says of Rogers Radio’s gift
Lord Selkirk annex, just off Knight and 29th, is a small inner-city elementary school whose requests for assistance from The Vancouver Sun’s Adopt-a-School campaign were among the most modest received. Two winter jackets, 15 pairs
Free breakfast and lunch programs provide a major boost to learning results
If there’s one dramatic no-brainer in our collective desire to see kids’ classroom performances improve, it’s this: to feed the mind, first feed the body. For half a century now, scholarly study after scholarly study
Schools in Need: CABE looks after teen mothers and their children
For many Grade 12 students, graduation year is a hectic but fabled time of anticipation and excitement as the world beyond the classroom waits. But for Vanessa Ellingson — the head and breadwinner of a
Schools in need: Sir William Macdonald elementary faces special challenges
A new iPad is a coveted Christmas gift for many kids. But for the students at Sir William Macdonald elementary, it can be the difference between learning to read, or not. There are only 80
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