Posts tagged ‘adopt-a-school’
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
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: 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,
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 certainly difficult for him to have to come to school like that,” said Hal Wall, principal of Burnaby’s Morley Elementary;
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 screen comes to life, so do Mazzone’s Grade 3 and 4 students at Henderson Annex in southeast Vancouver. It’s hard
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 is the time when poverty bites hardest. “There are children who will need help and this is the time when
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 the price of box springs and mattresses. It’s fair to wonder what the price of beds could possibly have 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 bills, a couple of cheques and a hefty bag of rolled-up coins. All told, $1,749. It had been raised quietly
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 a rising tide of classroom poverty. Such generosity from our readers brought relief to hundreds of children in 37 schools
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 the needs of poverty-stricken children and families, Duggan pledged to spend $500 a month on fruit and vegetables and distribute
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 Doug Zabkar are married in Vancouver, there will be joy aplenty, but the roughly 95 guests will be arriving empty-handed.
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 last year, the commercial real estate company’s local office raised $12,765, a sum that will be matched by the Vancouver
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 Gelson pleaded for social justice on behalf of her students it would have resulted in the Adopt-a-School campaign and such
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 Tuesday morning she was getting the hang of it. Navigating was Julia Morrison, a Scottish nurse, who apologized for having
‘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 of winter gloves, 10 toques, two pairs of runners and two pairs of winter boots (sizes provided) were top of
From bombs to books; Indomitable spirit of ESL students inspired principal to write book
By Janet Steffenhagen From the outside, Edmonds community school looks like an ordinary neighbourhood school. But inside, it is a microcosm. Four out of five students were born outside Canada, more than half are learning English as a second language (ESL) and a third are refugees from countries such as Afghanistan, Sudan, Congo, Iraq and
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