School District 72 Superintendent Tom Longridge used his final blog post of 2017 to highlight the efforts of the kids in making our community a better place.
“As winter break is upon us and 2017 draws rapidly to a close, I wanted to take a moment to be thankful for all that our educators, students, and staff do to give back to the communities in which we live,” Longridge says. “This is a time of giving, sharing with, and caring for those around us, and I truly believe the Campbell River School District has a culture of caring.”
Longridge focused on the good things that various ogranizations within our community do – such as the Knights of Columbus Hamper Fund, the local SPCA’s efforts to help the animal friends we hold dear and Grassroots Kind Hearts, who feed those less fortunate within our community every night.
And he’s proud of the contributions the schools make in these efforts.
“Each year during this month of December, many of our schools support the local food bank and Knights of Columbus hampers through food drives,” Longridge says. “This results in literally tons of food being donated to local families. Many of our schools are engaged in other charity projects such as shoebox donations, which fills shoeboxes full of gifts for distribution to needy families locally, and in developing countries, others collect gifts and supplies to help support the local transition house, the homeless society, and many more. The interact clubs in both secondary schools raise funds throughout the year to support charitable projects both locally and globally and Timberline organizes the Fair Trade Global Craft Fair each year to bring a big box alternative shopping experience to Campbell River and to support projects throughout the world.”
Longridge says it just makes sense that the schools get involved in these types of initiatives, because, “this spirit of giving back to the community is also part of our approach to learning. The educational transformation brought about through the new curriculum values service learning as a ‘core competency.’”
Longridge went on to highlight other specific projects and initiatives undertaken by various schools and classrooms and congratulated the students, teachers and staff who make this possible.
“As a school district, we aspire to ensure that our students graduate as, literate, and numerate young adults ready for the constantly changing world. We also wish them to be capable global citizens who understand their place in the world and their responsibility to care,” he says.
“On behalf of the school district, I would like to wish all those in our learning community and all the communities of which we are a part, a very merry winter break, filled with all the joys of the season!”