Dear Editor:
Someone said to me the other day, “it would be nice to find a way to get the kids in our community more involved and giving back to the community.”
It made me realize, people are not always aware what our youth are up to.
In the past two months I have seen the students at Summerland Secondary School undertake the following:
o Went door to door collecting items for the food bank for the Annual Halloween for Hunger.
o Took a vow of silence for children in the developing world. They didn’t talk, text, or Facebook for 24 hours and raised more than $500 in the process.
o Chopped vegetables (outside) on a freezing Saturday in November for soup to feed the hungry around the world.
o Accepted the challenge to take $100 and turn it into more for charity through the Rotary Club’s $100 Challenge.
o Sold crafts in the cold at Light Up to raise money to build a school in Haiti.
o Spent an entire Saturday selling crafts again for the school in Haiti.
o Held at least eightto 10 bake sales for Haiti and our breakfast club.
o Ran a coat drive to provide much needed winter coats for the homeless.
o Ran a Christmas food bank drive for Summerland food bank.
o Collected and sorted over $200 worth of cans and bottles to keep our school breakfast club running.
o Volunteered at the Santa Skate (organizers only asked for eight volunteers; 20 signed up.)
o Volunteered at the special Halloween swim.
o Made pies for the food bank.
o Raised over $1,000 for breast cancer helping with a dance performance.
And those are just the activities I know about and just in the last two months. Those of us working with kids have the privilege of witnessing this altruism, energy and enthusiasm for helping others.
Unfortunately, we aren’t always great at telling the community about it. Hopefully, this letter will rectify that.
The kids in our community are pretty fantastic overall and I am inspired by them every day.
Jane Stead
Summerland