Nickel Belt News
Volume 58 Number 11
Friday, March 16, 2018
Thompson, Manitoba
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Volume 63 • Issue 22
Juniper Elementary students unite to combat homelessness, raising funds and awareness The grade 7 class at Juniper Elementary School was not expecting anything out of the ordinary when they chose to study homelessness as an interest-based learning topic in English class. The issue of unsheltered and unhoused people in our city is something that we have all seen and experienced in our day-to-day lives, so the intention of their learning path was to educate and break down the negative stigmas surrounding this issue. One of the first steps in learning about local issues of homelessness was to bring in guest speaker Kristi Gingrich from the Canadian Mental Health Association, which operates The Healing Center. As the students began to learn more about the topic, they started asserting that there had to be something they could do to help the people in our community that are affected by these issues. The students then decided that they would host a school-wide donation drive to benefit The Healing Center that ran throughout the month of May. It started off with handmade posters that the students placed all around the school and a small group that would make an announcement twice a week during morning announcements. As donations of canned goods and hygiene items started coming in to the classroom throughout the weeks of May, the students were determined that there
wards their cause. Then, responses came in from The Thompson Labour Committee, who had voted to donate $200 towards the students’ cause, as well as Safeway, who had elected to donate $100. By the end of the month, the students had received over 140 in-school donation items, and had fundraised over $1000.00 for their cause. The students then created a detailed list for their teacher to shop for donation items with all of the funds they had raised. The day before the CMHA workers were scheduled to pick up the donation items, the students unbagged all of the donation items to organize them, and were able to cover every desk in their classroom with items, some desks having items stacked in order to fit! Then, on May 31, 3 CMHA workers arrived to pick up the donations. The students helped the workers load their truck with all of the items they had worked so hard over the past month to procure. The CMHA workers made sure to thank them in person, assuring the students that the items would go very far. The sheer amount of donation items was amazing, all resulting from the hard work and passion of a class of young people that wanted to do good in their community. We hope they keep sharing their passion and drive to do good things in the future
Book a way to preserve and pass on memories of growing up in Churchill The Juniper grade 7 students with 3 CMHA workers and their term 3 teacher.
The donation items in class the day before pick-up. was more they could do to donation items. help. The students wrote While waiting to hear and signed letters to both back from the two organSafeway and the Thompson izations, an opportunity Labour Committee asking arose: The Thompson Refor donations to their drive cycling Center was looking in hopes of obtaining more for help to clean their lot
Photos submitted by Angelique Larocque
of litter, and were willing to pay those who helped. The students voted unanimously to clean up the lot and donate the funds earned to their cause. The students worked hard and managed
to clean 41 bags of garbage within 2 hours and earned $200 for their hard work, but they did not stop there! The class organized and hosted a school-wide bake sale that earned $520 to-
Innovative play park proposal: students aim to bring American Ninja Warrior thrills to Thompson
Addictions Foundation of Manitoba northern director Gisele deMeulles has written a book about her experiences growing up, mostly in Churchill. BY IAN GRAHAM
to write things that you have ‘Oh, I’m just as bad, right?’ was not a very safe thing to figure out. It’s pretty clear I have all these stories and to do but I jumped at it. I Though now written when I get through.” them forfor at thought Teachershe’s Katherine Young, Thompson, the installation Iofneed the tobecapture breaking down least tenthat was exciting a book about her experienDeMeulles said she wrote my grandchildren really until the plane landed and along with eight students from equipment and the labour associ- to fifteen years.” Said Young. ces growing up in Churchill, her book, titled Whispers in because they will be lost if they started R.D. Parker Collegiate School ated with it. However this does The end goal is once every- throwing the Addictions Foundation of the Wind: Stories I don’t.” thing has been completed fuel offand and I realized, ‘Holy made a presentation for council not include thefrom landthe or clearing Manitoba director North for She also a reputation cats, I was on Mondaynorthern June 5. The presentathehas money has been raised, in- probably sitting the- Life landinforChurchill construction. Gisele deMeulles saidequipment writ- a couple reasons. as a storyteller on will a bomb.’” tion was for new play Toofmeet the cost associated cludingherself. the portion that be ing wasn’t something she “I with just building sort of the thought, “I had set such a varied hisAnother thing that that is inspired by the American new park, they aside for maintenance and always thoughtobstacle she would you have knowapplied what, for thisseveral his- grants tory and replacements I would tell people spurred Ninja Warrior courses of parts as needed.her on was the do. tory,and thisfundraisers stuff that’sare in my hard times facing Churchill stories they would go, and to be built in the area behind the already be- and They will turn over entrust “In my Courts. youth I never head, going by to be it?’ I’d go, since the Hudson Bay RailJumpstart ingit’s planned thegone students‘That’s with not thetrue, newisobstacle course inspired feltSome goodofattheir writing,” she are if I don’t write to it down,” she annual ‘Yeah it’spark true.’ They’d go,the way operations objectives the goal have some along with fundssuspended for said. “But when I moved ‘You didn’t do all that, did said. “My kids are not gonorth of Gillam last spring. to improve infrastructure in fundraisers to help with any cost any repairs needed to the City to Thompson to get into ing to get it if I don’t do it you? You’ve got to be really “It used to be a really Thompson, give teens and adults of maintaining the equipment of Thompson. school work, and once it’s something old.’ I was like, actually thriving athe free way of to social increase physiccompleted.I’ve The alfundraising The ‘No, name for the park is stilllarge community at pointreduce I had todamage write to waysevents wanted my mom I did all in that and it’swill just dwindled down al that activity, are planned to to be focused thebefore works, Iaswas the students for university and realized, do. My mom’s an elder and 27,’ and they went ‘What?’” to such a small population the court benches and provide around community engagement be choosing one name out of ‘Holy, aI’m notplace bad to at play this, and she’sand an involvement. artist, she’s got so Looking some MĒTAWĒWIN of now,” deMeulles says. teens safe fourback, Cree words. right?’ I certainly developed many wonderful stories be-maintenthose experiences things Though she’s not there socialize. When asked “The meaning are Play, TIPWĒNIMISa lot of skill in university cause she always tells her she might not do again. any longer, her parents and The designer of the Ninja ance part, is it very costly in the OWIN meaning Freedom, and cameinspired out of there stories at Parks in Wong. “I did some pretty bizarre her sister and other family Warrior playwith equipfuture?” by Canada Councillor ASPĒNIMOWIN meaning a veryisstrong skill my Churchill and I’vesaid always stuff likeHope fuel hauls into the members ment base out of in Steinbeck “The designer it is designed and WĀWĀTĒWA mean-still are. writing and confi dence in hounded her, ‘Please, just high Arctic at -35,” said “My cousin owns the Manitoba; and the cost would be to be low cost in the future, but ing Northern Lights. To be demy writing. I write very put it on tape, I will write it deMeulles. “It didn’t dawn hardware $336,000 to complete. The cost there are probably parts that cided at a later date with a vote store there,” she clear that’s it. It’sdelivery there. to for you because storyshouldn’t on me until That was a says. is forand the equipment might need it.your But they by after. the students. Some people say it’s kind of is going to be lost,’ and she’s very dangerous thing to do. Because of that, blunt or direct. I don’t tend never done it and I thought, Being on a plane full of fuel deMeulles finds it hard to EDITOR@THOMPSONCITIZEN.NET
Nickel Belt News photo by Ian Graham
swallow when people say that Churchill residents should just find somewhere easier to live. “To say, ‘Those people choose to live there. They should just leave,’ is quite simplistic. It’s quite disrespectful. If we were in the same boat in another area I think we would scream about that so why don’t they have the option to do that? I think right now they’re feeling like they’re pawns in a political game and that’s really sad for them because I think the people of Churchill really want to thrive. They’ve built their worlds there. How would we feel if someone came to you and said, ‘I’m sorry, you have to leave your home community and we’re going to displace you somewhere else and all your loved ones and your history is gone?’”
For all the harsh weather and the dangers of polar bears, deMeulles said if it had been viable she would have moved back to Churchill in a heartbeat. “I miss the shoreline, I miss the rock, I miss the polar bears even though they’re very dangerous and I really miss the Hudson Bay,” she says. “When I go back home, standing on the Hudson Bay looking out on the bay, it just gives you an incredible sense. You feel so small and you feel great.” Now that she’s got one book under her belt, deMeulles says she may try to produce another. “I have another book in me,” she says. “It’s a darker story, more about personal growth and struggles. Maybe in the next five years it’s something I’ll focus on doing.”