The entire school population at Crescent Town Public School will be getting brand new BPA-free water bottles, thanks to a fundraising initiative which saw the school raise more money than originally planned, much to the delight of organizers.
“We raised $1,871,” said Emily Tureck, one of those organizers. “Our goal was $1,200.”
Tureck is a third year Nursing student at Ryerson University who is doing a year-long placement at Crescent Town. She helped identify a need for some nutritional counselling and suggested that supplying reusable water bottles would give the kids an incentive to make healthier food and drink choices.
“We started to notice that a lot of the students were bringing in unhealthy snacks and we felt that this was one of the ways to motivate them. We felt there was a need,” she said.
A wholesale company was contacted and because of the cost, Tureck said the original goal was to outfit only the students in grades one to four. But after only a couple of fundraisers the goal was surpassed, allowing all the approximately 800 students to get a new bottle.
Tureck said the initiative got a lot of help from the school community and local organizations as well.
“Parent council helped along with a number of community organizations such as Neighbourhood Link, Access Alliance and others who helped as vendors selling clothing or jewelry,” she said.
Personnel from Public Health, a community support worker, and a settlement worker with strong ties to the community were also instrumental in pulling everything together.
“Now that it’s been so successful the school is going to continue events like this in the future,” she said.
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