Kids at needy Duncan school “living in hopelessness”
The problem with becoming a statistic — such as being one of the 20 per cent of children living in dire poverty in this province — is that you stop being a person and become a number. And numbers and statistics, says Alexander Elementary’s Aboriginal Education teacher Laurene Klyne, have no humanity and if repeated […]
Downtown Eastside school breakfast program
For those struggling to stay housed and feed themselves on marginal incomes or social assistance that’s how it’s done. Pride is an extravagance, resilience is more useful. To those who don’t live there, the Downtown Eastside is Vancouver’s valley of the poor and the influence it exerts over the imagination of those living in comfort […]
Sidoo family helps hungry students at Gladstone Secondary
The school district estimates poverty makes 10 per cent of the school population vulnerable and the most obvious signs are students arriving at school hungry and in need of nourishment. There are 935 students in Chris Parker’s care and each has the right to a tug on his attention. But the Gladstone Secondary principal has […]
Adopt-A-School: Vulnerable and needy in Nanaimo
“Some people think this is a high-end area but they don’t see how some families are living in basement suites,” she said. Susan M’Gonigle has trouble picking out the right words when asked to describe how some of the children attending Rock City Elementary appear when they come to school in the morning. Euphemisms don’t […]
Surrey Safe Schools
Adopt-A-School: Surrey Safe Schools team helps vulnerable children and families Safe Schools is a unique organization comprised of school district staff and RCMP officers whose assignment is to protect and help the most vulnerable children in the district. Terry is a large man, well spoken, intelligent, and whose main concern — like all good fathers […]
Adopt-A-School: Troubled Surrey teen now helping others in need
Maddie, as she’s known to Surrey’s Safe Schools Team which became acquainted with her four years ago, was a bit of a handful when she was 11. Even the authorities took notice. Now 15, Madison, has put all “the stupid things” she did behind her. And here she was unloading Christmas gifts from a London […]
Land developer pitches in to help hungry students in Langley
The Vancouver Sun’s Adopt-A-School campaign has received almost $1 million in requests this year from schools desperate to feed hungry students The story was hardly in the paper when Rick Johal was sending out an email offering to adopt Langley Secondary School’s troubled breakfast program. About 120 students a day arrive hungry and in need […]
Douglas Park: Breakfast and Lunch
As many as 63 children and parents arrive at Langley’s Douglas Park Elementary looking to be fed every morning, coming in as early as 7 a.m. It’s still dark when the first of the families come in to the warmth of the portable parked at the entrance to Douglas Park Elementary in central Langley. This […]
Sir Charles Tupper Secondary: Homework Club Food Program
When he sees how they eat — with that definable difference between healthy teenage appetite and stark hunger — it occurs to Steve Sorrenti that some of the kids in Sir Charles Tupper”s homework club might not have eaten in the previous 24 hours. “It could be their only decent meal of the day. Who […]
Britannia Secondary: Breakfast Program
By the end of October, the breakfast program feeding hungry and impoverished high school students at Britannia Secondary was on life support and about to switched off. “We are out of money,” said principal Alec MacInnes. The program, which feeds about 25 students and siblings, has been available to students for a number of years […]