Students at St. Thomas Aquinas School were doing their part to help send physically disabled children to camp for the summer.
Students between Kindergarten and Grade 7 at the elementary school painted and coloured 500 Safeway paper bags. The bags will be sold at all the Safeway locations across the city with all proceeds going toward the Easter Seals’ Send a Kid to Camp campaign.
Zackary Pylychuk, the Easter Seals Ontario ambassador, was one of the hundreds of students who presented their coloured bags to Safeway employees at a school assembly Friday. He painted his bag with spring colours.
The 10-year-old said it felt good to help other children.
“I’ve been doing this for the past couple of years and it just feels nice to get to go around and helping Easter Seals,” he said. “It makes me feel good to see other students give back and it shows they care a lot.”
The school’s principal Letizia Tremonti said they were approached by Easter Seals a few years ago and thought it was a great idea to get involved with. This year the school added funds collected from hot dog sales.
Tremonti said they were able to raise $750.
“The kids love it,” she said. “We do 500 bags each time and they decorated them and we’re very excited to show off all of their creations knowing that the bags will be used for donations. This teaches them community involvement and helping others and thinking about people other than themselves.”
Anita Lafontaine, first assistant manager for the Arthur Street Safeway, said the fundraising campaign raised $12,000 last year.
She said the students will be at the grocery store on Saturday to sell the bags.
“It’s a really good way to bring Safeway into the community,” she said. “I think the store and the whole community agrees that we have to make sure that we’re giving back in any way that we can. Whether that’s decorating a bag or doing volunteer work like what we’re doing here today.”
The shopping bags will be available until the end of April.
The bags cost $3 each or three for $5.
