All Stories
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,...
2019/2020
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...
2019/2020
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...
2019/2020
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...
2019/2020
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...
2019/2020
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...
2019/2020
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...
2019/2020
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...
2019/2020
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...
2019/2020
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...
2019/2020
Adopt-a-School: Brechin Elementary in Nanaimo needs help supporting students with basic needs
Adopt-A-School: Inner-city school in Nanaimo needs help supporting students with basic needs Privation is the reason a recent University of B.C. study found 55 per cent of kindergarten kids in...
2019/2020
Adopt-a-School: Holly Elementary Emergency Fund
It would be an exaggeration to say Shauna Milne and her two sons are living in Surrey. Existing would be nearer the truth. Sitting in the principal’s office of Holly...
2019/2020
Adopt-a-School: ELL Welcome Centre Bridge Program
When refugees arrive in Surrey two pieces of information are indispensable: Directions to the nearest food bank and how to find their way to the ELL Welcome Centre on King...
2019/2020
Adopt-a-School: Bridgeview – Needs often go beyond food
Surrey principal Diana Ellis doesn’t cry very often at work, but she shed tears the day she found help for seven-year-old Anisa. Anisa is autistic, non-verbal, and was coming to...
2019/2020
Adopt-a-School: Greater Heights Learning Academy Lunches
Greater Heights Learning Academy teaches special needs students from 13 municipalities in the Lower Mainland, arriving from as far away as Abbotsford and West Vancouver. The spectre of childhood hunger...
2019/2020
Adopt-A-School: Some North Delta Secondary students arrive hungry and with no lunch
Principal Aaron Akune can’t do anything to alleviate the poverty found beyond the boundaries of North Delta Secondary, but he can certainly try when he finds it on school property....
2019/2020
Adopt-A-School campaign to feed hungry children launches
Today marks the ninth year that The Vancouver Sun will be appealing to our readers for help in alleviating one of the most serious social problems of the day —...
2019/2020
Adopt-A-School campaign raises record funds for B.C. kids
This year’s Vancouver Sun’s Adopt-A-School campaign resulted in a record $923,774 being sent to 129 schools across the province…..more...
2018/2019
Number of hungry kids triples this year at Nanaimo secondary school
“The north end of Nanaimo used to be an affluent area but that’s changed a bit. We see a lot of families moving in here from Vancouver and the mainland...
2018/2019
Eastside school needs funds to help feed kids
Sometimes it’s the parents who admit they aren’t keeping a safe distance from hunger. But mostly it’s the children who tell the tale, says Vanessa Mani, the Enhanced Services worker...
2018/2019
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...
2018/2019
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...
2018/2019
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....
2018/2019
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...
2018/2019
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...
2018/2019
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...
2018/2019
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...
2018/2019
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...
2018/2019
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...
2018/2019
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...
2018/2019
Holocaust survivor knows ‘what it’s like to be hungry’
There is a poignancy about Jack Kowarsky’s presence among the children being served breakfast in the cramped lunchroom of Surrey’s Bridgeview elementary. In May 1945, when he was the same...
2018/2019
Adopt-a-School 2018: Thousands of children come to school hungry, traumatized by dehumanizing stresses of living in destitution
Within the past few months this newspaper has carried stories concerning poverty that should cause alarm in the minds of most right thinking people. One disclosed that hundreds of homeless...
2018/2019
Adopt-a-School has dispersed $3.8 million to schools over past eight years; Money raised is primarily used to feed students, but provides multiple services
The Vancouver Sun’s Adopt-A-School program has sent $567,328 to 94 schools throughout the province this year to help teachers feed, clothe and care for children suffering from poverty. Since AAS...
2018/2019
Telus donation helps kids keep up with technology
Youth who age out of foster care here face a high risk of addiction, homelessness, unemployability and teenage pregnancy. “That’s been our experience,” said Kathleen Bennett, executive director of the Northwest Inter-Nation...
2017/2018
OpenRoad Auto Group helps children in its communities with Adopt-a-School donation
It was a combination of wanting to give back to the community and hearing stories of children in need that touched the charitable heart of the OpenRoad organization. It began...
2017/2018
Birchland Elementary: Former Seaforth Highlander steps up for Birchland pupils
Trevor Street asks a simple question: “Have you ever been to a country that doesn’t have an education system?” Many people would likely answer no. Street, who runs the Partners...
2017/2018
CABE: Holidays can be brutal for kids who can’t even look forward to home-cooked meal
The two-week Christmas break is a joy for most students, but not for desperately poor kids, says Erin Watkins, a youth worker at Coquitlam Alternative Basic Education (CABE). “School is closed for two...
2017/2018
Surrey: Refugee families receive food and vital assistance
For refugee families it’s often the local school that holds them together until they find their balance. And for Obeid Abouzeid, his wife Nazadar and their five children – all...
2017/2018
Tutors keep it real, pay it forward at QE in Whalley
The world outside can be harsh and dangerous for teenagers in Whalley but it’s countered wonderfully by the warmth and caring found in the library of Queen Elizabeth Secondary on peer-to-peer tutoring nights. Twice...
2017/2018
Tupper Alternative Program
There’s nothing extravagant about what the alternative school program at Vancouver’s Sir Charles Tupper Secondary needs from the community. Food, clothing and bus tickets. Some students don’t have enough to...
2017/2018
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