A Sarnia school is helping address the lack of clean, safe drinking water affecting one of many Indigenous communities across Ontario.
St. Anne Catholic used a school-wide fundraiser to purchase a water filtration system for Antler River Elementary School of the Chippewas of the Thames First Nation.
St. Anne Grade 2/3 Teacher Lori Barbato said the water awareness and conservation campaign was launched by the school's Social Justice and Wellbeing Club.
"In their research, as they were making these slide decks for the classrooms, they discovered that there [were] still 23 Ontario Indigenous communities that had some sort of boil-water advisory," said Barbato. "So to them, this was quite outrageous and they thought, 'is there anything we can do to help?'"
The school applied for and received a $500 grant from the Learning for a Sustainable Future charity.
Barbato said the school then purchased reusable water bottles, resold them at a profit, and used that money to buy the free-standing water filtration system.
"It holds 12 litres of water and it can filtre up to 600 litres of water," she said. "It has a spout and a stand and it would be something that would be ideal for a classroom or a staff room or something like that."
On June 23, St. Anne students presented Antler Elementary with the filtration system during a Pow Wow.
"They had a chance to talk to some of the community members there and participate in the Pow Wow, which was a really wonderful experience for my students," said Barbato. "And the principal, Steve Styers, was very grateful for the donation."
Barbato said it was such a wonderful learning experience and that she's grateful for the grant.
"If it wasn't for that then we probably wouldn't have thought of the idea, and getting the support of our principal and the school, it was really a big school community event for us," she said. "I think overall, the school learned so much and so did the students and that's the whole goal, right?"
-With files from Josh Boyce
