Children will go hungry in Surrey school if breakfast program is lost
Surrey principal Angelo Morelli says it would be a tragedy if his school, K.B. Woodward Elementary in Whalley, ever lost its breakfast program which feeds up to 60 hungry children every day. “The kids need breakfast because often their parents can’t provide it,” says Morelli. “This is a lovely school with great kids, but we are […]
Program at Sir Charles Tupper secondary school helps teen parents graduate
Seventeen-year-old Rena Nadeau admitted there was a time she considered dropping out of school. Eighteen months ago, she was pregnant and it looked like her school days were over. “I was on the verge of dropping out,” says Nadeau, as her nine-month-old baby, Kaesen, sits on her lap. “I was at Van Tech and I didn’t […]
One in five children in B.C. live in poverty
One in five B.C. children live in poverty, a rate that is unchanged from 20 years ago, First Call’s 2016 B.C. Child Poverty Report Card shows. That’s 163,000 kids living in poverty, including 50 per cent of those living with single parents and high numbers of foster children aging out of care, children of recent immigrants, […]
Families at Edmonds Community School struggle to buy food and pay rising rents
Social assistance rates have been frozen for almost a decade in B.C. while a white-hot real estate market has pushed rents through the roof. Which is why Sean Gaster, principal at Edmonds Community School in Burnaby, sometimes sees 60 children a day coming in hungry looking for breakfast. Parents, too. “It’s very difficult for some […]
Hunger still a major issue in many B.C. schools
This province has children who arrive at school each morning hungry, improperly clothed or without adequate footwear. Not just dozens or hundreds. Thousands. All they can hope for is the compassion of teachers to help them endure these miseries. To their great credit it is not unusual to find teachers and principals attempting to feed […]
A closet for students who don’t have one at home
There are some students attending Vancouver’s Sir Charles Tupper Secondary who own their own cars. And there are some who own only the clothes on their backs. The gulf that exists between those two groups needs no exploring. “Kids with cars? Yes. I remember seeing one kid broken down who didn’t know how to use […]
SOS saves families from hunger
Each month the SOS room in the basement of Norquay elementary offers a lifeline to as many as 14 impoverished families. The acronym stands for Support Our Students but it’s too close to the international Morse signal for immediate rescue for there to be any doubts what it’s all about. And Margaret Jorgensen, who inherited […]
Burnaby school breakfast program gets boost from group of businesswomen
In 2011, The Vancouver Sun’s Children’s Fund sent $11,000 to Edmonds Community School to pay for breakfasts for the 45 children coming to school hungry every day. “We’ve just about used up that money,” Mischa Greenwood, the school’s community coordinator, said earlier this week. The Burnaby school had only asked for $8,000 from the Adopt-a-School […]
Help feed hungry children at Edmonds Community School
Edmonds Community School in Burnaby is a culturally rich and diverse school with more than 48 countries represented by our students and families. Many of the 330 students attending the school have backgrounds from Sudan, Liberia, Congo, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Mexico, The Philippines and El Salvador. The school celebrates their diversity and heritages but […]
Truck makes hefty Christmas haul; London Drugs marks fifth annual toy run with donations to five schools
It’s not a sleigh, and there are no reindeer, but there are Santa’s helpers, so when that big blue and white truck pulled up outside Bonaccord elementary school in Surrey on Wednesday morning it was like Christmas had arrived early for several dozen of the school’s neediest students. As London Drugs’ Wendy Hartley and driver […]