Adventure Club students from École Robert H. Smith prepare banner for Community Breakfast
École Robert H. Smith school held its annual community breakfast on Friday March 7. This was the seventh time that staff, students and volunteers from the Oak Street school have hosted this event which has always proven very popular in the past.
Principal Tom Rossi explained how the school has a philosophy of giving back to the community. Grade six students did research on local charities and made presentations to their peers who in turn voted on who to support this year.
Some of their excellent single and group presentations gave the young students some valuable life experience and was a definite confidence booster.
Previous events have raised over $20,000 for Winnipeg Harvest and $13,000 for the Children’s Wish Foundation.
This year’s winner was the Children’s Hospital Foundation who will receive all proceeds generated by this event for support of pediatric research at the Manitoba Institute of Child Health as well as equipment for patient care and health.
The initial goal of over $10,000 was achieved with $11,000 being raised at the end of the morning. However it’s not just about raising money but fostering an interest and awareness of local charities.
The breakfast was once again covered live by various local media outlets including the Joe Show on102.3 FM, with Joe Aiello broadcasting live from just inside the door to greet guests as they arrived. The CTV’s Morning Show and City TV’s Breakfast Television were also there. It’s usually a celebrity event too, past guests have included football players from both the Blue Bombers and the U of M Bisons as well as the mayor and the premier.
This year’s main celebrity invites Jennifer Jones and her Golden Girls of Olympic curling unfortunately failed to show up. However they are rumoured to be coming to visit Ecole Robert H. Smith next month when they are staging an anti-bullying day. Local city councilor John Orlikow was spotted at the breakfast though.
Catering was generously provided by the Pancake House along with DeLuca’s and Starbucks coffee.
There were door prizes and a silent auction where guests had a chance to win a Jonathon Toews autographed Chicago Blackhawk jersey and signed Jets and Goldeyes jerseys as well as haircuts, massages, manicures, free pizza for a year, an iPad, catering for fifty guests by Stellas or a movie for fifty and much more.
There was kiddies entertainment in the form of a jumping pit, knee hockey, basketball toss, pitching cage, clowns and an autograph table with sports stars.
It had a Canadian Olympic theme with guests being urged to wear red and white and was very well attended, once again drawing a crowd of over a thousand people.
