École publique Renaissance students have come together to give back to the community.
Students from Grade 7 to 12 donated 1,301 cups of soup, 180 cakes and a $100 gift card to The Yo Mobile.
The non-profit’s founder Mario Dussault said he was very happy and the donation will help a lot.
Through various classroom challenges and incentives in classrooms, the students collected the donations in less than a month, according to the school’s guidance counsellor Cindy Bergeron.
“These students went over and above to make sure this was a success,” she said. “This is 100 per cent the kids that did it.”
The school usually has a big fundraiser in May when the students play volleyball with the Timmins Police Service and paramedics. Although the event was cancelled because of the pandemic, the students still wanted to give back to the community, Bergeron said.
"They had an impossible question on the radio every morning that they had to answer and they would get soups for that. And each classroom had different challenges, too," she said. "And one of the activities the kids used to do all the time is wear a hat on Fridays. And they would give $1 (or) bring a soup on Friday to be able to wear their hats."
Grade 8 student Esmeralda Ofori-Agyepong said she used her first allowance, about $40, to donate to the cause.
“I was saving up for something but I didn’t really know what else to do, so I decided that I wanted to be the biggest contributor in a class to help,” she said. “Whatever money I got, I started to give it … I feel better because I know people who might not have meals would have, at least, a full belly. And it’s better because we don’t have to have starving people and then it helps everybody.”
