The Windsor Secondary School Green Team invited fellow North Vancouver School District secondary school environmental clubs to participate in a friendly Clean Up Challenge from April 19 to May 31, 2021.
Each club encouraged its members to download the Litterati app and take part. With weekly club clean ups and by cleaning up on their own time, each member took a picture of a piece of trash they picked up, and the app tallied their score.
At the end of the challenge, we surpassed our goal of 6,000 pieces, and we picked up 7,305 pieces! The top contributors of our challenge received a prize generously donated by local businesses.
The main goal of this initiative was to reconnect with our neighbouring secondary schools through a fun and sustainable challenge. COVID-19 made it difficult to interact with other schools in the district as we had done in the past, and we felt that we had lost touch with our school communities. To reunite, we planned this fun, socially distant activity that individual members could take part in, while helping the community.
We would like to thank the special guests who came out and supported our weekly clean ups: School Trustee Kulvir Mann, Superintendent Mark Pearmain, Manager of Sustainability Luke Smeaton, District of North Vancouver Mayor Mike Little and Councillor Megan Curren, Principal McGowan and Vice-Principal Bertrand, SR Media Canada’s Andrew Cocking, and the North Shore News.
We would also like to thank the following locally-owned businesses that generously donated items to be used as prizes for the challenge: Bjorn Bar Bakery, Bluhouse Cafe, Buddha-full , Delish General Store, Local Lift Juice Bar, Honey’s Doughnuts and Sweet as Treats Deep Cove.
Quote from School Trustee Kulvir Mann: “It was a pleasure to collaborate with the Windsor Green Team and participate in their lunch time clean ups for the district-wide Clean Up Challenge. As a trustee, it makes me happy to connect with the students and support their initiatives. It’s important for them to feel their ideas are valued and their voice matters. We need to empower our students as they are our future leaders.”
Quote from Windsor Green Team Teacher Sponsor Megan McEwen: “Over the past year, COVID-19 has presented all communities and their schools with multiple challenges–the halting and/or reduction of team activities and restrictions in regards to meetings and other gatherings are just a few examples. Overcoming these obstacles in a safe and respectful manner is undoubtedly a sign of great resilience and determination. The successful organization and implementation of the district-wide community clean up by the 2020-2021 Windsor Green Team proved that despite our social distance, we could still come together to effect positive change.”
Ms. McEwen added, “Our Green Team challenged students not only to continue to be environmentally active but also to push through the cloud that hung over us all. I commend them all on their perseverance, positivity and tenacity, and thank them for continuing a long-standing tradition of Windsor students taking action to better their community.”
This story has been reproduced with permission from School District 44 (North Vancouver). The original posting can be found here.