¿Qué está pasan
do? (What’s Going On?)
Something wonderful is simmering away in a pot of spicy south-of-the-border deliciousness… and it involves our youth doing something wonderful in their towns and in a Mexican community too!
If all goes as planned, sometime in this school year a good percentage of the high school students will be traveling to Oaxaca, Mexico to work at an orphanage, with agriculture and ecotourism organizations, in construction and more… and they will be doing it as part of their curriculum.
Principal Dan Rude and a group of parents and teachers have taken on the challenge to raise enough money to send committed high school students on a Community and Global Involvement Project excursion, likely in the spring of 2013. Read more on this in Dan Rude’s articles in The East Shore Mainstreet each month.
This is a massive undertaking as each student will require approximately $2,000 to make the journey and will, most importantly, be required to take a very active role in the fundraising and community development/involvement aspect of the program, right here in their hometown. The idea is that these kids get involved on a local level to help in our community. While doing this work, they earn “travel bucks” towards the trip to Oaxaca. They’ve already worked at several locations so far this year, including helping take down Tipi Camp at the end of the year, volunteering with the lunch program, helping at the Fall Fair, organizing school activities and volunteering for the Riondel Fire Department.
There is a group of parents working with the school in fundraising and grant-writing for this project. They will be contacting most readers over the coming months (or you’ll just see projects going on around town – feel free to get involved!) with fundraising opportunities like bottle drives, local events, student work, etc…
How can you help right now? There are opportunities to employ youth, either in real form with cash exchanged for labour, or through community involvement work, where they can earn “travel bucks” which get paid into the travel pot through grants and existing dollars for the project. Need help splitting firewood? Got some yard work or cleaning to do? The opportunities are endless and by hiring a student, you create an opportunity for them to develop themselves through community consciousness and energy and bring what they learned to a community in more dire need of support.
This is the epitome of win/win. Contact Dan Rude at drude@sd8.bc.ca or at the school at 250.227.9218 if you have ideas or want to be involved in this astounding, new program that is all about global/community betterment and education for our area youth.