Grade 10 English students at Osoyoos Secondary School are bringing a novel they’ve studied to life by gathering clothes and money for Covenant House, a centre for homeless youths. From left are: Taylor Price, Bailey Toepfer, Braelyn Robinson, Navreen Chauhan, Paul Sekhon and Kelly Lao, some of the organizers of the project. (Richard McGuire photo)
Grade 10 English students at Osoyoos Secondary School (OSS) are bringing their reading project to life with campaign to help homeless youth.
The class is collecting clothing and monetary donations for Covenant House, a place for homeless teens in Vancouver.
Teacher Catherine Scott said the students have been studying a novel called Theories of Relativity, by Barbara Haworth-Attard, which is aimed at youth and tells of a 16-year-old homeless boy.
“They’re certainly getting a connection with the reading material that we’re doing,” she said of the project. “Otherwise it’s just words on a page.”
The novel became a social justice project within the context of an English class, she said, so the students aren’t just reading the book and doing tests.
“We’ve also brought in information about not just the novel, but statistics about youth in Canada and poverty,” Scott said. “I’ve shown them some videos about that so it makes a connection for them. Poverty is at home as well. It’s here in B.C., so it’s around all the time.”
The students made most of the decisions about the project and her role as teacher was just to facilitate, she said.
The class of about 30 students divided themselves according to roles with some raising money and others collecting clothing. A lot of the money was raised by collecting bottles.
The project is still ongoing and student Kelly Lao, who is doing public relations, recently sent out an email to people in Osoyoos asking for monetary donations, large clothing for winter, backpacks, jeans, shoes, jackets and toiletries.
Donations can be dropped off at the high school in room 104 or at Golden Chopsticks before March 10.
The students began gathering these items a couple of weeks ago. They plan to deliver them to Covenant House during the spring break.
Student Braelyn Robinson said the students put out an announcement to other OSS students over the public address system each morning.
When the students were deciding on what project to do, she said, they put ideas on a board and eliminated the ones they decided not to do.
Student Bailey Toepfer said many of the students have been involved in social fundraising programs in the past for such causes as heart and stroke or the Terry Fox Run to raise money for cancer research.
Taylor Price, who is doing public relations, said the goal is also to raise awareness about homelessness. The project helps students feel they have made a change and helped someone, she said.
RICHARD McGUIRE
Osoyoos Times
