These kids are all right.
Faced with a volunteer challenge, hundreds of teens from high schools throughout Thunder Bay donated their time and energy to help change the world. When all was said and done 507 teens gave their time, totaling 6,651 hours, a remarkable six-week accomplishment said Volunteer Thunder Bay’s Kayla Cerqueira.
"This is so important because our youth are our leaders of tomorrow and Thunder Bay definitely exemplified that with our numbers, with over 6,000 volunteer hours and more than 500 volunteers participating the challenge was a huge success," Cerqueira said. "It just blew the numbers out of my mind. It was just fantastic."
Since 1999, Ontario high schools students have faced a mandatory 40 hours of volunteer time in order to graduate.
Though many of the students had already accumulated their hours, at several schools the message came through loud and clear, none more so than Sir Winston Churchill High School, who won the local Change the World Youth Volunteer Challenge by convincing 197 students to put in more than 3,000 hours of their time.
Farida Hassan, a Grade 11 Churchill student, who helped organize the effort at her school, couldn’t be prouder of the results.
"The school did incredibly well. It absolutely exceeded my expectations. I never thought there were that many dedicated volunteers at Sir Winston Churchill. Our achievement really shows how dedicated the students are, how they’re capable of working on a team and showing commitment to a really important purpose," the 17-year-old said.
It wasn’t easy, though the carrot at the end of the stick, the provincial certification of having completed their volunteer hours, certainly lent a helping hand to her cause, Hassan said.
"That was a motivating factor, but commitment and just having fun together was also a factor," she said.
Students gave their time to everything from an Indian dinner served at the school to Grade 8 orientation to spending time at Shelter House.
She’s hoping the success from 2011 will see the challenge find equal success at all Thunder Bay high schools, and is looking for representatives from schools that didn’t participate this year, including Superior Collegiate Vocational Institute and St. Ignatius High School.
The more the merrier, Hassan said.
"I’m sure if we get them going forward and have them encourage their school to participate, we can get even more hours," she said.
That has Cerqueira setting an even bigger goal for 2012.
"Sir Winston Churchill had half those volunteer hours and almost half of the volunteers who participated. So if one school could do that, imagine if all seven of the local high schools participated, our numbers could be phenomenal," Cerqueira said. "Our challenge, like I said, we’re going to beat Toronto next year."
