Please help us fill needy kids’ stomaches
Since AAS began in 2011, it has provided millions of free meals for children who would not otherwise have been fed. Over the past year, the Vancouver Sun’s Adopt-A-School campaign sent $1,680,081 to 150 schools across B.C. to feed and clothe children arriving at school hungry or in need of adequate clothing. Since AAS began […]
Demand for charity and help growing every year
“I don’t want to deny any kid. Being the person on the front line who has to say no to their faces is heartbreaking.” Tammy Mojtahedpour has been the child and youth worker at Maple Ridge’s Glenwood Elementary since 2017. Back then, she was tasked with finding lunch for 20 children. Eight years later, she […]
A little help can make a huge difference
So many students live with hunger, financial insecurity or unstable housing conditions COURTENAY — Poor attendance is the most main reason many impoverished students fail to graduate, says Karma Taiji, co-principal of Glacier View Secondary, a Comox Valley alternate school with 190 students. Poverty can be demoralizing, and three-quarters of Glacier View students live with […]
Children’s needs come from all classes of families
For parents with little food money, a trip to the supermarket is mostly window-shopping — the aisles and fridges packed with food they would like to buy but can’t afford. Some years ago, when Vanessa Mani first sought help from The Vancouver Sun’s Adopt-A-School campaign, the line between impoverished families needing assistance and those able […]
Getting schoolkids access to lunch in a dignified way
At Nootka Elementary, a Vancouver school of almost 400 students, a number of whom come from outside its catchment area, roughly a quarter need help with food. Nootka Elementary is in the heart of the Vancouver’s Renfrew-Collingwood neighbourhood, an area with well-ordered and tidy streets. “We’re not in a place where people might typically think […]
Vancouver’s Eric Hamber secondary school needs help to restart breakfast program
Teacher says student coming to school without breakfast lethargic, lacked motivation to learn For two years, Matthew Vatta ran a-breakfast-on-a-shoestring program for his students at Vancouver’s Eric Hamber secondary. The teacher had nagging concerns that some of them were arriving at school hungry because they might not have food at home. They appeared at times […]
‘Food, warmth, love’ is the mantra at Yale Secondary
“The way the economy’s gone, you’ll have a family of five and a mother and they don’t have anything. They don’t have coats, proper shoes, food … nothing.” Cameron Smith’s mantra of “food, warmth, love” is the bedrock upon which he and other school counsellors and youth-care workers win the trust of the 200 at-risk […]
Feeding, clothing students is constant concern for Nanaimo principal
Georgia Avenue Community School is asking The Vancouver Sun’s Adopt-A-School program for $10,000 to feed, clothe and provide necessities for students and families who will otherwise go without. NANAIMO — “This morning I had a student who came to school just shivering because it was really cold and he was in what was obviously a […]
Students’ struggles prompt additional $25,000 donation from Vancouver lawyer
Vancouver lawyer Jack Kowarsky, a trustee of the Lohn Foundation, said he was increasing his support for Adopt-A-School after reading the articles The Lohn Foundation, a longtime donor to the Vancouver Sun’s Adopt-A-School campaign, is donating a further $25,000 to AAS in response to stories concerning the plight of students in the province’s alternate school […]
Nelson school in need of winter clothes, food hampers
This year has seen a spike in the numbers of children arriving hungry. NELSON — Blewett Elementary is built on a mountain in a rural community of the same name just outside of Nelson. It might be a small community school — just 101 students — but its problems with hungry children aren’t minor. About […]