Photo Caption: Students from Banded Peak School, Bragg Creek.
Children and teenagers living in and around Calgary are amazing. They are thoughtful, compassionate and generous.
We see this on almost a daily basis during the month of December. That’s when students who have been collecting donations for people experiencing homelessness and poverty drop off socks and back packs at our downtown building. They are stuffed with everything from hygiene items and new underwear to transit tickets and gift cards.
Students from preschool to high school find creative ways to collect the much-needed stuffed socks and back packs. For instance, Banded Peak School in Bragg Creek organized an assembly where each student was given a bingo card with all the needed items. Students could go shopping with their parents and fill up a square, a row, or the entire bingo card. The idea was a big success, students and staff from the school delivered 132 full socks to The Mustard Seed.
Kate, a Grade 7 student at Banded Peak School, says she particularly likes the idea of giving gift cards to people because it offers a measure of respect to someone who is experiencing poverty. “If I was on the street, I would want the freedom to get what I wanted. I think it makes you feel better to have money to actually buy your own thing,” says Kate.
Oliver, another Grade 7 student says, “I’m more fortunate and I know that. And these people, I feel I should give something to them. It just seems right.”
The socks, back packs and all the items stuffed inside them will be given to our guests at The Mustard Seed Shelter. The donations help fill some very practical needs, but as Kate also points out, giving to others “is the spirit of Christmas.”
Thank you to all the many schools that have collected donations for The Mustard Seed. Every student and teacher who participated made a tangible difference in the lives of men and women in need.
