Adopt-A-School: Small corner of closed Nanaimo school is thriving, but students need a hand
NANAIMO — Google Woodlands Secondary School and the search engine will come up with the message ‘ Permanently closed’ which is only partially correct. Most of this old, worn out, sprawling high school on Strathmore Street is boarded up — the windows nailed over with sheets of plywood, all the doors locked and bolted since […]
Adopt-A-School: Health and well-being are a priority at B.C.’s first UNESCO school
CRESTON — The winters here are harsh, so imagine how distraught Laury Carriere and her colleagues at Canyon-Lister Elementary are upon seeing children arrive at school — in temperatures way below zero — wearing summer clothes. “We just can’t stand it, seeing little kids in a thin hoodies with wet feet and thin shoes walking […]
Adopt-A-School: Holocaust survivor knew hunger, now supports needy kids
Vancouver lawyer Jack Kowarsky’s $50,000 donation to program that feeds hungry students ‘important for a child’s development’ It’s a story, fable and prophecy all wrapped up in 40 words, and the writing on the wall is clear: If poverty is allowed to interfere in a child’s education, society eventually suffers. “Mary’s family can’t afford a […]
Adopt-a-School: London Drugs committed to helping kids through poverty
Parked 20 metres away was a truck containing hundreds of gifts from London Drugs, and a small crowd of children was gathered in the hallway around teacher Rajbir Sohal, waiting to help unload it. She was about to open the school doors and let them out when she remembered how cold it was. “Put your […]
Adopt-a-School: Vancouver man donates $30,000 for second time
Vancouver businessman and philanthropist David McCann has donated about 1,000 pieces of art that will be auctioned off later this month at Sir Charles Tupper Secondary School in Vancouver, with part proceeds going to Adopt A School. David McCann insists he doesn’t need an awful lot to live on. “I’m 73-years-old, I’ve got a good […]
Adopt-a-School: Plight of the hungry hits close to home for Buddhist master
Vancouver Bodhi Meditation Centre donated $12,600 to the Vancouver Sun’s Adopt-A-School campaign to feed and clothe hungry children. Buddhist Master JinBodhi told an overflowing audience in October that when he was a child living during the turmoil of China’s Cultural Revolution under Mao Zedong, he watched his brother die of starvation. “He died of malnutrition […]
Adopt-a-School: Tupper Secondary art sale benefits children in need
More than 1,000 sumptuous pieces of art — photographic prints laminated on vinyl and mounted on boards ready to hang — will be on sale this weekend at Sir Charles Tupper Secondary. Proceeds from the sale will be split between the Vancouver Sun’s Adopt-A-School campaign and the school’s arts program. “These are beautiful prints and […]
Adopt-a-School: Refugees tell their stories
Adopt-A-School: Booklet helps refugee students in Surrey The program is operated from the school district’s English Language Learning centre on King George Boulevard, and the Vancouver Sun’s Adopt-A-School program is being asked for $6,000 to help support it. The booklet is a sparsely written 24 pages, but if anyone wants to understand the trauma and […]
Adopt-A-School: Renu Bakshi picks up tab for needy kids in Nanaimo
NANAIMO — Before she started her own Vancouver media company, Renu Bakshi was a CTV reporter, so it’s no wonder that when she decided to help impoverished children here at Brechin Elementary she would come and see for herself. The float-plane ride from Vancouver to Nanaimo only takes 20 minutes, but what Bakshi found once […]
Adopt-A-School: Vancouver dentist helps take bite out of hunger for city children
The Backpack Buddies program out of Lord Selkirk elementary feeds as many as 65 families each weekend out of a school of 745 students. From the large windows in her dental office, Dr. Joyce Chan can see children making their way across Kingsway to Lord Selkirk, the largest elementary school in Vancouver, located a few […]