Kids act locally, think globally with ’shoe boxes’

BY ANDY BLATCHFORD

andy.blatchford@transcontinental.ca



A red and green mountain of boxes stood in the hallway of a Pointe Claire school last week after students amassed Christmas kits destined for children in the developing world.

Clearpoint elementary school pupils stuffed gifts, including toys, school supplies and letters, into 244 shoe boxes as part of the Operation Christmas Child initiative.

The kits will be shipped to Haiti, Guinea, Ivory Coast and Senegal where they will be distributed to underprivileged children.

“It’s to help them because they have not got good lives,� eight-year-old Matt Trudel told The Chronicle during Clearpoint’s lunch period last Friday. “It helps them have a better life.�

Alexa Landreville, 9, filled her gift box with hair elastics, balls, dolls, pencils and a pencil sharpener.

“They need things for school supplies because they don’t really have stores there,� she said. “They don’t have a lot.�

She also penned a note to her foreign counterpart.

“I wrote, ‘I hope you have a merry Christmas and I hope you have fun with what I gave you,’� she said.

For Marion McKinney’s Grade 1 class, the experience was more than sharing. The project sparked discussion about daily challenges faced by kids in the Third World, she said.

“The main thing that hit home (with students) was the (lack of) water,� she said. “Over there (water) is one of the things that’s a privilege.�

Due to declining enrolment, the former Seigniory and Cedar Park elementary schools were merged to create Clearpoint in July.

Operation Christmas Child was Clearpoint’s first major endeavour since the fusion, parent Donna Cameron-Trudel said.

She called the drive a success.

“We had so many requests that we had to go to shoe stores because we ran out of boxes,� she said.

Cameron-Trudel said the boxes, which cost between $20 and $30 to prepare and ship, will be brought to Westview Bible Church and then sent overseas.