School: Gillam School

City: Gillam, Man.

Written by: Joe Alcock, student council teacher advisor

The Cause: Our main focus is to build essential infrastructure and provide sustainable resources for our adopted Haitian village.

The Action: To fundraise, our student council held various events and volunteered many hours to our cause. Nearly every month we hosted a dance and sold snacks, glow sticks, and other merchandise. To get the students excited for holidays, we sold candy-grams at Halloween and Christmas, as well as matchmakers before Valentine’s Day. Other events were a carnival on March 16 and a talent show in May. Our biggest fundraising event is Hockey for Haiti.

The Why: When Mr. and Mrs. Alcock took on the role of Student Council Teacher Advisors, new hope was brought to the group. From the get-go, they dreamed big: a summer concert to get students doing better things on a Friday night. The student council, revived the school spirit and had record numbers of students coming to events.

When the 2011-12 school year began, 10 selected representatives attended Winnipeg’s first We Day. The bus ride home was a constant discussion about fundraising ideas and projects we could undertake. The 10 students presented to the school a mini-We Day, where we talked about each speaker and the causes they are passionate about. At that time we also made our New Years resolution: to raise $15,000 for a village in Haiti. That money would cover the costs of providing the village with a well, a school, and other necessities. We were already active in helping Haiti, so we decided that we would adopt a village there.

We continue to work hard to help overseas, but we also help in the community. For Christmas we challenged classes to bring non-perishable food to school. The results were overwhelming. No one would be hungry over the holidays. Our school donated 626 food items in a school of only 420 students.  We also raised $300 to help with the purchase of turkeys and hams for our local food hampers. The Gillam School Student Council pledges to keep working hard, educate people about our cause, and be good examples in our community. It is the help from every one of our members that has made our ventures such a success.

Youth participating in Free The Children’s We Day Manitoba are writing regularly about how they are taking action and supporting local and global causes through the organization’s We Schools in Action year-long program. We Day Manitoba takes place Oct. 30, 2012 at the MTS Centre in Winnipeg.  For more information, visit www.weday.com