Students trick or eat for local food bank

From 5 p.m. onwards on Saturday, Oct. 31 throughout neighbourhoods between Jeanne d’Arc Boulevard and Highway 174, Cairine Wilson Secondary School students will canvass homes in an effort to collect non-perishable items for the Ottawa Food Bank as part of Trick or Eat.

“It’s partially a leadership initiative, but also a character-development initiative,” says Cairine Wilson principal Constance Mcleese. “It’s a win-win for a lot of people.”

Created and organized by the school’s small alternative program, the Halloween event will help promote business, writing and organizational skills, while also giving back to the community, she continues.

“(The program is) a project-based style of learning,” Mcleese explains, pointing to the need to offer leadership opportunities for students who may not get them otherwise. “One of the ways you create good people is facilitating the doing of good things. It’s some pretty powerful learning going on when they realize they can give.”

The origins of Trick or Eat, recounts Kerra Gardner, one of the teachers in charge of Cairine Wilson’s mini-alternative program, came from an initiative she saw completed while at teacher’s college in Thunder Bay, and how effective it proved to be.

“I couldn’t believe the amount of food they were able to collect in just one evening,” she describes. “It sort of had an impact on me as a person.”

She explains the group of nine students have spent at least 20 minutes each day planning for the event, organizing collection routes, recruiting teachers and other pupils and promoting the initiative to the public. So far, about 20 teachers have promised to dedicate their time on Halloween evening, Gardner says, along with at least 65 students. The group has also been in contact with the Food Bank, seeking guidance on how to most effectively run the program, she adds.

Right now, the goal is to collect 1,000 items, Gardner recounts, admitting that number “might be a little low” after seeing all the enthusiastic response at Cairine Wilson.

The initiative also ties into a similar one being done province-wide by non-profit organization Free The Children, continues Anne-Marie Robinson-Sisk, another Cairine Wilson teacher.

Halloween for Hunger – which launched two years ago – marks the same principles as Trick or Eat, she says, and will see participating schools from across Ontario.

“At this age, the students are phasing out of the trick-or-treating,” Robinson-Sisk adds. “They’re looking to become responsible individuals in the community.”

For the mini-alternative program students, “for most of them working on this, they’ve never had something as big as this (to organize),” continues Gardner. “They were really surprised at the amount of feedback we’re getting, which is a phenomenal thing.

“It’s really encouraged them to see they can set a goal and then reach that goal.”