Grade 1-6 Leadership Club: Guest Post by Grade 6 Students

Below is a post written by some incredible students who I am lucky to work with every week. Last year, after much interest from passionate students, I began to supervise a Friday lunch time Leadership Club. Read below to hear about it from members of the club.

Our school does Leadership Club because we know that there are people, out there in the world, who aren't as privileged as we are. We are fortunate to live our lives with such luxuries as clean water to drink and bathe in, being able to go to school, getting to have toilets that flush, and bathrooms all together! Our Leadership Club knows that it is our role to help others, and make a positive impact on other peoples lives, whether it be a friend or a young girl who can now go to school because of our fundraisers and events. We also know, that as kids and youth, that we are the future of the world, we need to improve and change our world for the better. We are the future, and we want the brightest future possible! We want a world that everyone gets clean water. We want a world where people no matter what their skin colour or religion are accepted. We want a world where all children can go to school. We want a world where there is a cure for every child, no matter where they live. We want a world where there's no need for all these organizations because no one is living in an unsafe environment. We want a better world. Although we can’t do it all alone, every bit counts. every bake sale, every coffee house, even a small amount of money each day, over time becomes enough to change someone’s life. Being in the Leadership Club changes our lives too.

In our Leadership Club here at Churchill Alternative School, we love to help others. One of our favorite sayings is, “Be the change you want to see in the world”. We have more than 60 members from grades 1-6 in our club! We meet every week on Fridays at lunch to talk about what we are doing to help others and how we can help each other to reach our goals. This year, we have goals to raise money for the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario and to raise $2000 for Ryan’s Well.

C.H.E.O. is really important to our club because one of our former members named Molly past away from her second battle of cancer. She was very special. Always looking on the bright side and being so respectful. We miss her dearly and because of that we realize that we need to help other children in the same situation as she was get better so they can live a happy healthy life. Her and her family started a team called “Team Robillard” so they could do the same that we are trying to do. Molly’s story made us all realize we needed to help others and not just ourselves.   

Ryan’s Well is really important to our club because we got to watch a presentation about Ryan Hreljac, a kid from Ontario, like us, who raised enough money to build a well in Uganda for kids who didn’t have clean water. Many kids in the world don’t have access to clean water and we feel pretty lucky that we do. We were amazed that Ryan was able to raise thousands of dollars when he was a little kid. Last year we had the the privilege of Ryan visiting our Leadership Club and talking to us about all his adventures!

Some of the grade 6’s that were returning members of the Leadership Club wanted to take more leadership and be in charge of the club, the became the Executive Team.  Our team runs the meetings, fundraisers and much more. We work really hard to make each and every week awesome!

Members of the Leadership Club present ideas about who to help. Sometimes we raise awareness, sometimes we raise money. Some of the fundraisers we have done in the past were:

-a bake sale at our school's Stop Motion Film Festival in 2014. That fundraiser’s proceeds of more than $1600 went to support two families fighting cancer: Team Robillard and Team Rob.

-a bake sale and button sale in 2013 to raise money to buy a water pump for needy children through UNICEF

-sales of Drallibots (in 2014) (tiny robots painted on dominoes, programmed to make you brave) to raise money for CHEO. Former members our Leadership Club raised more than $1100 with these handpainted robots!

-Hot Chocolate 4 Hope (started in 2013) is a fundraiser for UNICEF in which Leadership Club members set up hot chocolate stands, play music and sell hot chocolate

Last year, to recognize our help raising awareness and money, Free the Children invited us to We Day! It was not only fun but tough us a lot about being a proper leader. It was an incredible learning experience.

sincerely, Madi, Ben and Gabby  

representing the Churchill Alternative School Leadership Club