by Adam Gault
With the season of giving and sharing upon us, students at Colchester North Public School are collecting toiletries and select non-perishable items for donation to The Hospice of Windsor and Essex County.
Grade seven Leadership Candidates, Alexa Soucie and Keaton Seal, are spearheading the charitable endeavour to collect a wide-variety of sundries and consumables for direct donation to Hospice.
The items being collected include toothpaste, toothbrushes, juice, Jell-O, pudding, and meal replacements, such as Ensure or Boost.
The decision to support The Hospice of Windsor and Essex County was made earlier this fall when the Colchester North grade seven class attended its annual Leadership Camp at Gess†wood Camp and Education Centre.
After learning more about what Hospice means, and how it supports people, the students decided that it would be the organization they would collect donations for during the 2018-19 school year.
“It’s a good organization to help out, because not a lot of kids know what it is, as opposed to other foundations,” Soucie explained of their decision to collect items for the organization. “I didn’t know what hospice was.”
This year’s charitable collection has also been a learning experience for many surrounding the role and duties of hospice care, with the leadership students using the opportunity to educated fellow peers at the school of the important role the organization plays in the community.
“Our teacher is really pleased with us, and the students like helping out,” Soucie said. “We did an assembly about this, addressing the school, and we had the kids in our class make posters, and they really loved doing that.”
Looking not just at their immediate student body and extended families for donations, Colchester North is also seeking donations from the general public to support the hospice, with a goal of collecting 1000 items for donation.
“I feel like it’s doing good, and that we’ll raise a lot of donations for the Hospice,” Seal said, adding the school’s Holiday Concert on December 19 would be a great opportunity for families to bring an item to the school for donation.
Colchester North will accept items until the winter break, and will resume collections in the new year until spring.
Any items from the list can be dropped off in person, with the collection specifically seeking additional meal replacements and non-slip socks.