That's a Wrap!

It has been a busy year for the 2010-2011 McMath Interact Club. With over 80 active and energetic students involved in the group, Ms. D. Simonson and her students worked on a variety of different projects for a variety of different causes. Meeting regularly at 7am Friday mornings, the group shared information about their work but more importantly took the time to learn and develop life-long skills. In the end, members of both our local and global communities benefited along with the personal growth of each student involved. Please check-out the year-end slide show below that highlights the projects completed by the 2010-2011 McMath Interact Club.

RYLA

Ryla is a student leadership awards camp. Youth in grades 10-12 come from all over District 5040 for a weekend full of team building games, events and workshops to expand their leadership potential. This year’s theme was “The Power of One”. Students learned the importance of how one person can change the world if they want to. The different workshops showed them that they are capable of what ever they set their minds to and to let go of the parts of the past holding them back. The super supportive staff made the weekend amazing and inspirational. Having local difference makers close to the students’ own ages speaking was unbelievable. All that they have done and they haven’t even graduated high school yet! One person CAN change the world.

This year’s RYLA participants from McMath were as follows: Erin Lee, Ron Wan, Betty Shi, and Shevaun Ensor-Harrison.

Many thanks to the Rotary Club of Steveston for financially supporting the McMath delegates with the registration costs to attend this conference. 

April 8th General Meeting

At our Friday, April 8^th General Interact Meeting we welcomed all McMath members back to school after a wonderful and relaxing 2-week Spring Break. During the break, 19 students and 2 teacher sponsors travelled to Costa Rica for the Annual McMath Costa Rican Humanitarian Trip. Nine of this year’s Costa Rica delegates are also Interact Club members and these students had the opportunity to present a very generous financial donation to Ms. Gail Nystrom, founder of the Costa Rica Humanitarian Foundation (CRHF), on behalf of the Steveston Rotary. Also at the meeting on Friday, Lauren and Vanessa taught the club how to play the icebreaker game “Buzz!” Considering it was 7:15am on a Friday after a long, busy school week, this proved to be quite the challenging but a fun game for the students who had to remember their multiples of 7 as well as every number containing a 7. Afterwards, Mr. Neil Kamide, McMath Principal and Triple S staff sponsor, gave an inspiring presentation on Seniors, and encouraged all of the students to do our best to connect with the seniors in our lives more. After some further updates from Triple S and CARE projects, we took our Club photo for the Yearbook. 

February 4th General Meeting

On Friday, February 4th, Lauren LaPorte and Vanessa Lee, the Interact Club's Social Chairs, organized a fun little game where students had to keep weasels moving around in a circle, while hiding them from the student that was in the center of the circle trying to locate the weasel. It was a very energetic game that woke everyone up and had the club laughing! Next, each of the project chairs updated the membership on their progress - We 4 Water's coin drive and their Toonie Tuesdays were launched in February. The main goal being to raise enough money to buy a water filtration system for the Richmond District's sponsor school in Lai Gow, India.

Wigs for Kids Event at Hennessy Hair Salon

On Sunday, January 30th, members of the McMath Interact Club who are working on the C.A.R.E. Project volunteered at the Wigs for Kids event at the Hennessy Hair Salon located at Richmond Centre. They ran an information/awareness booth in the food court, handing out balloons and info pamphlets. The McMath students were very enthusiastic, dancing around the tables and educating those who came by about this amazing and worthwhile cause. C.A.R.E.'s (Cancer Awareness Reaching Everyone) main focus is on children who have or are currently at B.C. Children's Hospital being treated for cancer. Wigs for Kids is a non-profit organization that creates wigs for children going through chemotherapy. They collect donations of money and hair all year long with annual cuttings such as the one hosted at the Hennessy Hair Salon. There are many inspirational stories about how a wig has impacted a child's life. It can be as simple as improving the child's self esteem. When you're healthy your hair will grow back, so why not donate some to help those who's hair won't.

Wigs for Kids and Updates!

At the last general Interact meeting on Friday, January 21^st, guest speaker, Bev Friesen, from “Wigs for Kids” gave a passionate presentation about their organization and what they do. All the students at the meeting were touched by the stories of children affected by cancer that Bev had to share. “Wigs for Kids” will be holding a fundraising event at the Hennessy Hair Salon at Richmond Centre from 11:am – 6:00pm on Sunday, January 30^th where people could donate their hair or simply get a haircut and all proceeds went to the Wigs for Kids charity.

Following Bev’s presentation, the Interact Project Chairs updated the Club with the latest progress on all of their projects. Project Warmth announced that they have wrapped up their project and were delighted to have collected and donated over one-quarter ton of warm clothing articles to Vancouver Eastside Shelters.

Next…the Interact C.A.R.E. group as well as the We 4 Water project will be taking the spotlight. In support of We 4 Water, Matt Hoogveld, announced that a school-wide coin drive will take place the month of February and will be launched Tuesday, February 1^st. All proceeds will go towards buying a water filtration system for the Richmond School District’s sponsor school in Lai Gow, India.

Professional Development Conference

Interact Members! The following is an Invitation from the Rotaract Club of Vancouver - Have a look! 

On behalf of the Rotaract Club of Vancouver, we are pleased to invite you and your club to our fourth annual Professional Development Conference on Saturday, January 29th 2011. This event strives to inspire and educate participants about “The Power of One” through inspiring speakers with a variety of backgrounds and experiences. The theme of the conference revolves around uniting the power of one with the power of many to bring about exceptional change in the World. We believe that this conference will help youth develop essential leadership skills, and will support them in attaining their personal, educational and developmental goals. The personal experiences that our enthusiastic speakers will share are meant to inspire and encourage the students to become involved in giving back to their own community. We sincerely hope you will join us at this exciting conference to be inspired by our outstanding speakers!

Event Details

Date: January 29th, 2011

Time: 11:00 a.m. – 2:30 p.m.

Location: Irving K Barber Learning Centre (IBLC) building

Room 182

Dress: Business Casual

Refreshments will be served.

Parking is available at the North Parkade, which is located at 6115 Student Union Boulevard. The entrance to the parkade is on the north side of Student Union Boulevard across from the Student Union Building (SUB) and the Student Recreation Centre (SRC). A map can be found on the Wayfinding at UBC site:

http://www.maps.ubc.ca/PROD/index_detail.php?show=y,n,y,n,n,y&bldg2Search=n&locat1=516&locat2

If you are interested in attending our Professional Development Conference, please e-mail Mrs. D. Simonson (dsimonson@sd38.bc.ca) as soon as possible ~ due date: 6pm, Thursday, January 20th.

Thank you for your time and consideration. We look forward to seeing you at the conference!

Hedieh Rasool Javaheri

Professional Development Committee

Rotaract Club of Vancouver

Steveston Rotary meeting and Breakfast

On Tuesday, January 11th, the McMath Interact Executive team was invited to the weekly Steveston Rotary Club meeting at the Steveston Hotel and were treated to a complimentary breakfast. Even though it was a very early start to our day (6:45am) we felt very much appreciated by the Rotarians as we shared our club goals and plans for the year and discussed the progress of the different projects we are working on. This opportunity also gave us a chance to meet and greet the Steveston Rotary members and provided a sneak peek at the agenda and discussion associated to a Rotary meeting. Sadly (even though the meeting was not over) we had to leave at 8am to make it back to the school on time, but all in all the meeting went very well and we are looking forward to our year end debrief in June.

Christmas Senior's Luncheon

On Saturday, December 18th, members of the McMath Interact Club volunteered their time at the Annual Steveston Rotary Christmas Senior's Luncheon held at the Steveston Community Center. Student volunteers assisted in the festive event by serving food to the numerous senior guests. Laughter filled the air when the volunteers and the guests sand Christmas carols together. A special thank you to the Steveston Rotary Club for the opportunity to assist at this annual event ~ what a great start to the holidays!!!

H2O!! Photos

Alicia Doo (middle) is leading the group in a crazy activity!

The enormous group of students in the Interact club this year!

H2O!!

Happy New Year everyone!
With Winter break wrapped up and a New Year beginning it's time to get back into the swing of things! Before the break we had a general meeting where our guest speaker, Alicia Doo, a Youth Programming Coordinator from Free the Children, came to do some activities with us and talk to us about something we take for granted here everyday. Access to H2O!! Alicia really got us to understand the importance of water and how we are all so lucky to have such an abundance of it here in Canada and how in many places in the world such as India, they have next to none. Alicia's visit got the club hyped up to make our Interact International Project to raise money for a water filtration system for the Richmond School Board sponsored school in Lai Gow, India a successful one! Thank you Alicia for your visit and thank you Matt Hoogveld for the initial suggestion for this project!