We are very pleased to announce that the Selection Committee for the Rotary Indigenous Scholarship has selected Kayla Sunshine as the recipient of the scholarship for the 2020/21 academic school year. Kayla is Cree from Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation in Alberta. She will be entering her second year and is taking Indigenous Studies with a minor in Entrepreneurship. She has had a difficult past as both of her grandparents attended the Residential Schools and her father was in the Sixties scoop. He has also been incarcerated in Federal prison for all of her life. She dropped out of school in Grade 9 but is now attempting to set a new direction for herself. We believe that this scholarship will provide her with a life changing opportunity.
With the selection of Kayla we will now have two students attending the University of Sudbury on a Rotary Indigenous Scholarship for the first time. Along with Kayla, Hailey Sutherland, last year's recipient, will be entering her third year in September.
Unfortunately our Committee has cancelled the annual trip to Crawford Lake in May with the Rotary Exchange students due to the current virus situation. However, the District and our Committee have already agreed that we will plan the event in May 2021 for the next group of Exchange students.
Our Committee has also agreed to support a Mentoring program that RCO has initiated with Six Nations in Brantford. The program's goal is to reduce the student drop-out rate in High School, which is current almost three times higher than in other school systems. Due to the virus, the project is temporarily on hold, but they hope to restart it in the Fall. Our commitment is to help provide some professionals and trades people that will talk to the students about their profession and then become mentors for the students. We don't anticipate any financial commitment on our part.
Our committee is planning to become involved with a program called Art for Aid Project this Fall. It basically collects and sends art supplies to Elementary First Nations schools up north. We will provide more details at a later date, but since many people are using this personal distancing time to clean up around the house, we would like to ask you to collect and save any new or slightly used art supplies that you do not need. Once we restart meetings in person, we will make arrangements to collect the supplies. Examples of what they are looking for (but not limited to), include things like sketchbooks, paint brushes, acrylic or watercolour paint, watercolour paper, colouring books, pencil crayons, markers, stickers, playdough, erasers, glue sticks, beading material, scissors etc. They do not want books, paper, flammable paints etc. If you have questions about what is acceptable, please contact Joanne MacNair or myself.