This year, École Riverside School is involved in a new, quite interesting social action project.
Schools around the province were challenged to create and submit a plan of action to somehow make a difference in the world. While many schools opted for the chance to change lives abroad, we at École Riverside thought to ourselves, "why not look in our own backyard first?" and thus decided to focus on the homelessness issue right here in Thompson.
The project is taking off quickly. The grades included are the Grade 5 French and 5/6 with Mme Fudge and Grade 8 with Mme Ouellet. The students have had a chance to read a book in class on the subject, studied some of the things different non-profit organizations do, such as the Ladybug Foundation, and will soon have guest speakers come talk about these issues. Students are already showing a better understanding and a greater want to change and to help.
"Before [the work we did in class] I kind of felt bad for them, but now I really feel like everyone deserves a home," says Seth Bauer, a Grade 5 French Immersion student.
The Grade 5 class representative, Hayley Jenkins, agrees. "Now I've figured out that they're just the same as us because they're people and they probably don't want to be living without a house and they maybe didn't make a choice to live on the street," she says.
We created a concept we are calling "March Madness," where Mondays throughout March will be labelled as MAD (Make A Difference) Mondays. On these days, the students will ask for food and coffee donations for the homeless shelter from those people going through the drive-thrus at McDonald's and Robin's Doughnuts between 7:30 and 8:30 a.m. Tim Horton's will also support us by donating 30 medium double-double coffees as well as 30 breakfast sandwiches on those Mondays. The students will then bring the donated food to the homeless shelter before going to school. The restaurants have even reduced their prices for a coffee-breakfast sandwich combination to help our project!
The students are very excited to be able to help by giving one of our most basic needs, which is food.
"I feel good to help the homeless and to sort of change their lives and make a difference in the world. I think [MAD Mondays] can help the homeless because they don't have much to eat and I expect everyone to continue MAD Mondays on their own after the three Mondays," says Grade 5 French immersion student Kevin Quesada-Yanguez.
The students will also be helping in other ways, such as interviewing some of the homeless later on. The idea of this social action project is mainly to grow awareness of this problem, share a little of what we have and to try to make a difference, however small it may be, in someone else's life.
Sara Fudge teaches Grade 5 French Immersion at École Riverside School.
