BARRHEAD - You never know how much a simple thing like socks means until you don’t have them.
That is why Pembina Hills School Division (PHSD) success coach Katharina Friessen decided to approach the Fort Assiniboine School Students Union to see if they would like to participate in We Be Us’ Sock Day project to collect 50,000 pairs of new or gently used socks by Feb. 21 for Canadian homeless shelters.
Fort Assiniboine School hopes to collect 450 pairs which they will donate to the Youth Empowerment and Support Services (YESS) in Edmonton.
YES provides immediate and low-barrier shelter, temporary housing, and individualized wraparound support for youth ages 15-24.
Friessen first learned about the project through Fort Assiniboine principal Lorna Hiemstra who had seen a YouTube video about the project.
After watching the video, Friessen knew that Sock Day was a project that would be perfect for the school’s student union to take on — Friessen went on to tell her sister Martha Friessen, a Grade 6 teacher at Barrhead Elementary School (BES), whose class is now spearheading BES’ Sock Day efforts.
However, it wasn’t a given.
“It is totally up to the students,” she said. “Sometimes I give them ideas but in the end, the students vote on what they would like to do.”
The student union is the school’s leadership group. It has representation from every grade and class from Grade 9 right down to Grade 1 and Kindergarten.
However, Friessen admits attendance from Kindergarten and Grade 1 sometimes is a little suspect.
“They can find it boring,” she said.
It is the student union that selects all the school’s special theme days, provides updates on the child the school sponsors, help with the school’s hot lunch program and plan and activities that contribute not only the to wellbeing of the hamlet but the larger provincial, national and global communities.
The student union usually meets three times a week during their lunch break. One meeting is usually devoted to union business, at the others they do a fun activity.
Although at the time the Leader visited, Feb. 11’s Jump Rope For Heart Day, Friessen did an impromptu count and it looked like the school had already surpassed its goal.
And that doesn’t include the financial donations students and community members have made.
At the end of the campaign, the school will purchase additional socks to add to their totals.
To help raise awareness of the homelessness issue, the school hosted a Feb. 10 sock hop. Admission to the dance was a pair of socks or in place of, a toonie. Principal Hiemstra, an ardent Edmonton Oiler fan, encouraged donations by agreeing to wear a Calgary Flames jersey if a student donated 30 pairs of socks. One student brought in 40, Friessen noted and Hiemstra was true to her word. Kindergarten teacher Colleen Kiselyk has also agreed to run barefooted across the soccer field if the school surpasses its goal.
The bear house (school intramural team) that brings in the most socks will be rewarded with a party and the student who brings in the most socks will get a chance to throw a pie in a teacher’s face.
The official sock count will take place on Feb. 20.
