Social Justice at Halloween

The school’s Social Justice Committee went around to classrooms, collecting food for the food bank, which they say was inspired by a Craig Kielburger talk. The campaign is one of the many initiatives Kielburger does with his company Free the Children. “He said he started in Grade 7, and it was cool to see kids could do something that’s so big that could make a huge difference,” said Ali Cameron, a student on the committee.

According to Barb Foley, president with the Queens County Food Bank, they feed between 130 and 150 families a month. Foley said they will probably be fine until the end of the year as long as drives like these continue, but is not to optimistic for the New Year. “It’s a hard time all around, and it’s probably only going to get worse,” said Foley. She attributes a lot of the problems to ever-rising food costs, and people not having the extra income to make donations.

The Social Justice Committee is made up of 10 students and four staff members, which meet weekly to discuss topics of interest. “It’s something we knew we had to do in terms of raising social awareness in our school,” said staff member Jackie Leonard.

Leonard said it is student driven, however, which makes the student body more likely to listen.

Already in Oct. they managed to get the African Nova Scotian flag and the Mi’kmaq flag put up in the foyer of the school.

The committee wants to focus on issues that affect Queens Co. residents. “It’s important for people around here to realize that you don’t have to do things on a huge scale,” said Cameron. “You don’t have to be in Africa, because there are things around here that need to be fixed.”