Navan students work to build a school

by Dan Plouffe

Excitement is building at Heritage Public School for its Arts for Africa night, a fundraising event dedicated to building a school in Africa.

Grade 8 student Arden Streib, a leader of the O Ambassadors Club, and 20 other club members from Grades 4 to 8 have been busy calling local businesses to collect donations for the silent auction. So far, they’ve found about 50 sponsors. Some students have also contributed their own pieces of African art, like beaded bracelets and a tabletop tile mosaic.

“It’s a lot of work, but it’s so going to be worth it,” says Streib, whose group expects around 300 guests at the event. “I’m so excited. It’s just going to be so much fun.”

The event will include West African dance performances, a speaker from Free the Children and children’s authors who will explain the importance of culture and diversity.

“We’ve tried very much to stick to the culture with this entire event,” explains Grade 7/8 teacher Heather Kirk. “The arts are so symbolic in the African culture that I thought it would be really nice to have an evening centred around that.”

The chance to explore African culture also provides a contrast to what the group has studied, like education and health conditions, Streib says, although learning about the difficulties in Africa has reinforced her drive to help however she can.

“You don’t really realize how different everybody’s living in the world. We have so much and then we see these little kids standing in front of a mud hut. It’s really sad,” she says. “We really want to help them out, because it’s so not fair for some people to have such a good life and then others not having a good life just because it’s a poor country where they live.”

Arts for Africa takes place Feb. 5 at 6:30 p.m. Admission is $10 and there’s free babysitting. There will be a 150 item silent auction to help towards the school’s year-long goal of raising $15,000.

Heritage Public School students display their African artwork.
Photo by Etienne Ranger

source:
http://www.eastottawa.ca/article-297964-Navan-students-work-to-build-a-school.html

Last Chance to Save!!

Today, January 31st, is the last day to purchase the hardcover books at the pre-order discounted price.

http://www.rootsandwingsbooks.ca/shop.html

Thanks to all of you who made your early purchase - your books will be in the mail next week!

How You Can Make a Difference!

On February 5th, Roots and Wings Books will be participating in the Arts for Africa event, hosted by students of the Oprah Ambassadors program.

$1.00 from your purchase of a hardcover book on February 5th and February 6th will be donated to their cause of raising funds to support the building of a school and educational needs in an area of Kenya.

For more information on the event, the cause and the events we are particiapting in, please visit:

http://www.rootsandwingsbooks.ca/events.html.

Literacy Day Events!

Participating in the Guiness Book of World Records attempt for Literacy Day last week was truly an inspiring event. In Oakville the event was kicked off by a reading of Seven Hands, Seven Lands. Read by a seven year old to his grade two classmates it was exciting to see the reception the book received and the enthusiastic conversation about both the story and the artwork which it inspired. Hearing "that was a great book" from several of the grade two students was a real thrill and later hearing feedback from parents that the kids had talked of the reading of 'Seven Hands' at home was fantastic!! It was such fun to read the wonderful Robert Munsch stories to the children in order to participate in the world record attempt and overall it was a fun filled afternoon for adults and children alike...there really is nothing like reading some good books!