A Grade 7/8 teacher at St. Joseph Catholic School in Corunna is "incredibly proud" of his students for the initiative they've taken this year in fundraising nearly $4,000.
At the beginning of the school year, Aaron Rupert gave his class $100 in seed money to grow for a charitable cause.
He said the idea stems from the school board's Kingdom Assignment Project, where some schools give students a small amount of startup money and challenge them to multiply it through entrepreneurship and creative fundraising.
"To my knowledge, that didn't exist in the northern part of the St. Clair Catholic District School Board. I remembered doing it as a kid, and I thought this would be such a great thing to bring back," Rupert told Sarnia News Today. "It gives students such an amazing chance to build leadership skills, collaboration, and they develop problem-solving abilities. It's just really great for soft skills and it gets them thinking outside of the school's walls."
Over the past several months, the students organized various fundraisers such as school dances, hot chocolate days, snow cone days, and a charity dodgeball game.
Some students also took it upon themselves to do odd jobs around the community to raise money, including raking leaves and shoveling driveways.
"I saw all kinds of examples of students stepping out of their comfort zones, and I really saw a lot of growth from the students," Rupert said. "I had students who were terrified to make a phone call, they got over that fear and they reached out and called all kinds of local businesses looking for donations. I had students who maybe weren't as confident getting in front of a big group of people, running these huge school-size events. Just seeing my entire class working together on one shared goal was amazing for class community as well, so I was incredibly proud of the students."
In total, they raised $3,949.
Aside from coming up with ways to raise funds, students were also tasked with choosing an organization to support.
"They had to research and pitch a charity to the rest of the class. So the charity the class voted on was Childhood Cancer Canada," Rupert said.
Rupert said he's been in contact with the organization and the donation will be made within the next couple of weeks.
