Students in Mme Osborne’s and Mme McKernan’s class at East Ridge Community School worked together to raise money for OSHaRE in Owen Sound. The idea for the fundraiser started with a Year 2 Kindergarten student, Isla Nickel. Osborne says that their class frequently cooks or bakes on Fridays. In November, after baking muffins, Isla said: “Madame, we should bake something and sell it to make money to give to people who can’t buy food.”

Osborne explains that in Kindergarten much of the learning follows an emergent curriculum model: “Our Kindergarten program in Ontario recognizes that our young learners are capable and competent, and we try to honour that in our classroom. So when Isla presented this idea, it offered a rich learning opportunity for the whole class.”

After securing permission to run a small fundraiser from the school administration, Osborne set up the supports for the students to take ownership of the project. First, the class voted to decide on whether to make cookies or fudge. Then there was a small group discussion on whether to sell the cookies, or to put out a donation jar for their charity. Last Friday, the class worked together to bake Snickerdoodle cookies. While the cookies were baking, the students set to work making posters to explain they were raising money to help people who needed food. During both lunches, students took turns supervising the table outside their classroom to offer their cookies and encourage donations from adult staff members. After lunches ended, the cookies were placed in the staff room with the donation jar.

On Monday morning, the students had their class meeting and worked together as a team to count how much money they had raised. They also compared the money raised by donations with how much money they would have raised selling the three dozen cookies for a quarter. They were thrilled to discover that they had raised $49.00! To help them reach $50.00, Osborne said she asked them how many quarters they would need and added four quarters to their jar. Later on Monday afternoon, the students were visited by OSHaRE executive director Colleen Trask Seaman. Trask Seaman shared with the children some information about the kinds of meals they serve to people. Isla presented her with the jar of money the class had raised to support OSHaRE. Both Osborne and McKernan said they were very proud of how all the students in the class got behind Isla’s idea and worked as a team to help make a difference in their community.

source: media release, East Ridge Community School