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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

School can teach us all a lesson about caring spirit

Posted: 12/24/2009 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

It's the morning before Christmas, and the last-minute-shopping creatures are frantically heading for the mall, but I'm happy to say I've already found a gift for you.

A re-gifted one, actually.

It's a story, of course, which originally arrived via email from Karen Knight, guidance counsellor at Grant Park High School.

The story's central character is a student named Johnny, the name Karen chose to call him. He's a relative rarity at the south-end school.

"Most of our students are privileged to come from middle/upper class families," Karen wrote.

There's something else that distinguishes him from most of the other students. He's aboriginal and he has no family to turn to in Winnipeg, which is even more of a rarity at Grant Park.

The story starts two years ago.

Johnny was placed in a group home because his mother wasn't able to care for him. Then, last June, the group home wasn't able to care for him, either, because he had turned 18 and had to leave.

Johnny found himself alone, fending for himself for the first time. He found a job working construction for the summer, managed to locate an apartment close to the school and saved enough money to prepay his rent through October.

Then one day, Karen got a "Dear Ms. Knight" note under her office door.

"I assumed it would be the usual, I-think-I got-my-girlfriend-pregnant story, or the my-parents-caught-me-drinking story or the I-caught-my girlfriend/boyfriend-cheating-on-me story."

But Johnny surprised her when he arrived looking distraught, weak and tired as he slumped into a chair.

"Ms. Knight," he said, "I have no idea how I will pay my rent."

It was worse than that.

Karen soon learned Johnny hadn't eaten that day, and it was already 3 p.m. Obviously, the money he'd been making washing dishes part-time at a local restaurant wasn't even enough to keep him fed, never mind pay the rent.

Karen could get him something to eat right away, but he would need social assistance. That would take a while to kick in, though, so others at the school stepped up.

The police officer assigned to Grant Park paid for all Johnny's school-cafeteria meals. The school division's aboriginal consultant gathered groceries and the school division's director came by with Safeway gift cards.

"As I drove him downtown to Rorie Street to apply for social services," Karen wrote, "he sat quietly eating his drive-thru hamburger."

Then, turning to her, he said this:

"You know what, Ms. Knight? This would be so much easier if I had a family to fall back on."

Karen glanced over at him in the passenger seat. There were tears trickling down his cheeks.

"My aunt and uncle are so far away," he said, "and I probably won't even see them at Christmas."

So it came to pass that earlier this month, Karen sent out an email to Grant Park staff asking for donations to help send a student home for the holidays to see his aunt in Thompson.

Last week, Karen emailed all Grant Park staff. The message was "thanks." But the subject line said something else: "Hey Joe -- He's Going Home!"

While Karen was picking up Johnny's ticket at the Greyhound bus depot, the man behind the counter asked if it was for her. She said no and as she counted out the cash from the collection envelope, she told the story of whom the ticket was for.

"Wow," the ticket agent said.

It was such a "wow" he shouted the news to a co-worker.

"Hey, Joe. Hey, check this out what Grant Park is doing. These teachers actually care... "

So do the teachers' aides, caretakers secretaries and the school cop.

Yes, it's a wonderful school.

But not just at Christmas.

"Now," Karen concluded, "if we can just get him to do his homework."

gordon.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition December 24, 2009 B1

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