On Tuesday we were given an update on what the Interact club a J Percy Page High School has been doing this year. The presentation was made by three members of the current executive, all of whom are now in grade twelve, Chhavi Kausha (President), Gurleen Kaur (Vice President) and Mahmoud Asadi (Treasurer). This Interact club has been sponsored by our Rotary club for the past ten years. Their Strathcona Rotary advisor is Eric Germain and their school teacher advisor is Mrs. Huculak. They told us that they have about fifty members in their club at present. They do quite a bit of public relations within the school promoting their club activities and it’s fundraisers.
Their club has been very busy with various fundraising and volunteer events throughout the past year. They did a fall clean up of the school grounds for which they received a five hundred dollar donation from the Emerald Society. At Halloween they sponsored a Scary Movie as their first fundraiser, which also included drinks and snacks and raised five hundred dollars for their club. They also made a volunteer trip in the fall to Ronald McDonald house to cook and serve dinner. At Christmas they sold candy cane Candy Grams which raised about three hundred dollars for their club. They made two more trips to volunteer at Ronald McDonald house in January and March and had a really good turnout for both.
For Valentines Day, they sold Roses (which were donated by Heather de Kok of our club) and raised over three hundred dollars for their club. This makes a total of sixteen hundred dollars raised so far for this Interact year. They still have another yard clean up planned for which they expect to earn another five hundred dollars. They also plan to help the school Earth Club plant trees this spring and hope to be able to volunteer at the Mustard Seed some time this spring as well. The groups that they donated their funds raised from the previous year to were Operation Smile, Polio Plus and supporting graduation attendance for a J Percy Page student who cannot afford the expense. The group has yet to decide how the funds raised this year will be used.
Our club supports the Interact group by donating funds for groceries for Ronald McDonald House and this year we also supplied the club members with blue shirts that have their club logo on them. They said that their members enjoy and wear the shirts a lot and they definitely give their club more presence within the school. Our club is also sponsoring two of their members (Mahmoud and Gurleen) to attend RYLE in early May, and one member (Chhavi) to attend the Rotary Adventures in Citizenship program in Ottawa this spring. They said that they have really appreciated being able to be part of the Rotary community and that it has given them a chance have fun, help others, gain new experiences, learn leadership skills, and have the opportunity to be more involved in their community.
