School fuel

Shannon LeClair

Times Reporter

 

At the beginning of October, students from Strathmore High School, SHS, involved in the Student Leadership program donated $1,000 to School Fuel. School Fuel is a new program, which started last year, and it began through Hope Community Church.

“Once the kids really started looking at it last year, they decided there was a need in the community, so why not keep the money they had raised in the community so then they decided to donate it to School Fuel,” said Karen Galandy, a guidance counselor at SHS.  

The majority of the money came from selling cotton candy at the Canada Day celebrations. There was also a Halloween food drive for the food bank: the kids went trick or treating, but instead of looking for candy they were looking for non-perishable items for the food bank. Last year there were 20 kids involved in leadership and this year they have approximately 60 members. 

“That’s part of raising good citizens, is teaching them to give back to the community,” said Galandy. “We’re hoping that we’re building community leaders.” 

Last year Alicia Peterson and Christin Dewald, members of the Hope Community Church, went to the principals at the public elementary schools and asked what they could do to help care for kids in the town. One idea the schools had was that kids needed breakfast and the second idea was to provide a safe place for kids to go before and after school. 

Every day members of the School Fuel Program are in the schools serving a healthy breakfast to students. 

Without the support of the community, School Fuel wouldn’t be able to operate and provide their services to those who need them.

“We’ve gotten quite a bit of community support for sure. None of the funds come from our church, it’s all from the community,” said Dewald.