For some residents of Lakeview the first snowfall of this winter was met with the arrival of the CSS Snow Angels. This group of grade 9 students took up the idea of becoming snow angels for their service learning project this term. One local resident commented " What a wonderful surprise to wake up to find our front sidewalk had been cleared". No doubt this group will have a busy season ahead of them!
Gingerbread House Building Contest - Grade 8/9 Leadership
In December, the Grade 8 and 9 Leadership class held a Gingerbread House building contest for charity. After the contest was finished, we donated the houses to various organizations including the Mustard Seed, Avenue 15 - a homeless shelter for youth, the YWCA Sheriff King Home, and Woods Homes. Teachers were asked to work with their classes to choose 5 participants to represent each class. The houses were judged based upon their aesthetic appearance and overall build quality. The design and appearance varied, some were simple and minimalistic while other were very ornate with many decorations brought in from the participants. In the end, there were many good entries, so we decided to choose a winner from each grade. Each of the participants was awarded 5 House/Colour points while the winning teams from each grade were awarded an additional 5 points. The contest turned out very well in the end and the Gingerbread Houses were very much appreciated by all of the recipients.
The Grade 8/9 Leadership students who organized this event would like to give a big THANK YOU to Ken Wlad of Sobeys who donated all of the Gingerbread kits. Without him, all of this would not be possible.
Winners by grade (10 House/Colour Points each):
4.3 - Colin T., Sofia D., Erica R., Ethan G., Anna V.
5.4 - Kate L., Amanda C., Stephanie C., Jon B., Justin B.
6.3 - Jada B., Kristin M. Maggie C., Will S., Cole D.
7.3 - Harley D., Sarah P., Colby L., Connor S., Noah V.
8.3 - Jada A., Shaina F., Tyler W., Nick B., Jaime C.
9.3 - Jags B., Kelly H., Kayla R., Sabrina V., Calder K.
Written by Khoi N., Edward K., Cam B. (Gr. 8)
This year one of our Grade 6 Humanities Teachers, Chris Dittmann, is volunteering for a organization, Hands at Work, that works with HIV orphaned children in Africa.
Greetings to all of you at CSS from hot and sunny South Africa. For those of you that don’t know me, my name is Mr. Dittmann and I am usually a Humanities teacher at CSS. I say “usually” because this school year I have taken a leave of absence from my teaching position at CSS in order to serve as a volunteer with an organization called Hands at Work in Africa. I am currently living near a town called White River in the province of Mpumulanga, which is in northeast South Africa, close to the border with Mozambique.
Hands at Work is a non-governmental (charity) organization that assists communities in eight countries in Africa that have the highest numbers of orphans and vulnerable children and have little or no access to things like hospitals, clinics, and schools. Hands at Work doesn’t deliver any of the services, like food, education, or health care. Rather, people in the community itself get organized to do this and Hands at Work tries to support them and help them to do even more things to help the kids in their community.
Most of my days here are spent helping local Hands at Work volunteers. I try to do whatever I can, like teaching computer skills (not many Macbooks here!), writing proposals and reports about projects that the communities are doing and also writing stories about some of the kids who are getting help in the community. Not many people in the communities own cars or drive so I also spend part of each day driving volunteers around. I enjoy it, although people drive on the opposite side of the road here in comparison to North America, which was a little confusing at first!
Many of the kids in the communities I’m working in face huge challenges in their lives. Many children have lost their parents due to HIV/AIDS. Some of these kids are taken in by relatives, who already have difficulty providing for their families. Other kids end up living on their own. We call these “child headed households”, where the oldest kid becomes the caregiver and head of the family. Some of them are barely teenagers. It’s very difficult for these kids to provide food for themselves. Some are forced to quit school and try to earn money. Safety and security are big issues for these kids living alone.
Even though I’m not at CSS this year, I have had lots of contact with my fellow teachers back home. In fact, we have been busy coming up with some ideas of how you at CSS can connect with what is happening here in Africa.Through technology, we’re looking at ways that CSS teachers and students will be able to see what life is like for some of the kids here and get to know their stories.
There are two households in particular that I’ve been working closely with – and that I’m hoping CSS will support over the next few weeks. These young people are currently living in very unsafe conditions – and it’s my hope to build two secure house for them – at a total cost of $7000.
I am still working out the details of how to collect funds for these families – but I’ll communicate that shortly. The great thing about being here is that I’ll be the project coordinator for buildings – and students at CSS will be able to skype with the families in January as the homes are being built.
Thanks for taking the time to read this!
Sincerely,
Chris Dittmann
Chris made a short video about this project:
Chris Dittmann in Africa from Calgary Science School on Vimeo.
Chris has also created this document that adds additional information about two of the orphan boys (Mthandazo and Sipho) he has been closely working with:
How CSS helped Pakistan
During the week of September 9th to 17th, 6.1 held a bottle drive to help the people in Pakistan. Students from the school brought some bottles, can and milk jugs each day and 6.1 picked them up from the each room and counted how many bottle each class collected. 4.3 brought in the most bottles so now they receive an ice cream party! They brought in over 1700 bottles!
Here are some facts about the flood in Pakistan:
· More than 3.5 million children are at risk contracting a deadly water borne disease.
· 20% of Pakistan has been flooded
· More than 1500 people have died in the flooding
· Millions of people have been displaced
We raised $1400.00 and are donating that money to the Canadian Red Cross. The Government is matching the funds that are being donated. A total of $2800.00 is going to Pakistan.
We would like to thank all of the people who brought in cash donations and bottles for Pakistan. Way to go CSS!
By Inaara K.
