On Wednesday, September 23rd, the class of 2010 kicked off their year with the now annual Grade 12 Service Day. The first part of the day was spent at the Salvation Army where the class was divided into teams to prepare meals in the soup kitchen, serve in the thrift store, warehouse, food bank, and throughout the grounds and the building. We are always grateful to Salvation Army staff (and especially Chris who spends the most time overseeing our group) for so graciously providing us the opportunity to come and serve.

The day “showed that it really is possible to have fun and work at the same time” according to Meekaylae. This group of students is very skilled at making work fun, as evidenced by Priscilla and Cristina who made the job of peeling fifty pounds of potatoes into a contest of who could peel the most potatoes in five minutes. While the contest was short-lived after a few too many potatoes hit the floor, they made it through all fifty pounds and learned that it really is possible to get a blister from a potato peeler. Prisicilla said she thought it was really cool to work together on the meal and then see the people come through and genuinely enjoy the meal that had been prepared.

The highlight of the day for Rachelle was dressing mannequins, while Meaghan commented that putting together food hampers was her favourite job because she knew the hampers would go to people who needed them. Students realized that what they were doing, no matter how seemingly minor of a job, was important, and as Yenuel said, “helping others reflects our love for the community we live in”. As teachers, Mr. Munro and I were impressed with how the students put their hearts into whatever they were doing and enjoyed themselves in the process, and in turn,we enjoyed getting to know our students outside the classroom setting.

After our work wrapped up at the Salvation Army, we boarded the bus and headed up to Benanna Lake in Ryder Lake for games and a barbeque. It was a hot day, so many students willingly jumped in to cool off, and numerous others were ‘helped in’ by their classmates. Students enjoyed boating, eating, and playing games together. Though we all felt like we had
put in a long day when we arrived back at school at 6:30 pm, the time we spent together and the memories we made were worth every aching muscle and piece of pond goop we had to wash out of the bus (and out of clothes, out of ears, out of hair). Cristina summarized the day by saying, “it was a great opportunity to get to know each other and serve our community at the same time”. By all accounts, the day set a great tone for the year for the class of 2010 and it accomplished all we hoped it would.

written by Julie Lade

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