NACI students take part in Hunger Games
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- Published on Friday, April 3, 2015
By Kate Jackman-Atkinson
The Neepawa Banner
With the school year well under way, student from NACI’s social justice group, HOPE, have been having a busy spring.
On March 19, Senior School students got to take part in the culmination of a week-long fundraising campaign called Delay The Day. The fundraiser was taken on by the student council, with the money collected donated to HOPE. Dasha Chekhovskaya, one of the organizers, explained that for a week, students brought in spare change which was collected in a jar in each classroom. On the sixth day, March 19, during the first class of the day, teachers counted and rolled all of the change collected. During this delay to the start of the day, students got to relax and socialize.
This year was the first time that Delay the Day has been held at NACI, but Chekhovskaya said that they got the idea from the WE Day app. In total, $612 was raised for HOPE.
In addition to collecting money, HOPE students were also collecting food for their “Hunger Games, Mockingjay” initiative. This is the third year students have collected food as part of a competition inspired by the popular adventure series, the Hunger Games. Two of the organizers, Emma Salmon and Bethany Bertholet, explained that they have modelled this year’s event after the third instalment of the trilogy, which sees the districts working together. At NACI, students in grade 9 to 12 will work together to collect a total of 750 pounds of food. If they reach their target, there will be a barbecue for all of the participating grades.
In April, the students will be taking the food to Winnipeg and volunteering at Lighthouse Mission and at Winnipeg Harvest. In addition to the food, the students will be bringing donations of men’s long underwear, briefs and socks for Lighthouse. The students had a $300 budget to purchase these items and local retailer Giant Tiger gave them a 25% discount, allowing them to purchase more items than expected.
In addition to these projects, the group has collected toys for the Salvation Army, donated money is support of clean water and health care overseas and are currently fundraising $10,000 over two years to build a school in Kenya.
