The 27-member Deer Meadow School Interact Club has some big plans for the Christmas season and beyond.
For example, until Dec. 10, they're raising money via Habitat For Humanity Christmas catalogues.
From Dec. 14 through Dec. 18, they're selling $10 Rafiki bracelets to raise money for Kenyan mothers through the Free The Children organization.
Five dollars of that $10 bracelet goes to the women who make the bracelets and $5 goes to Free The Children which then plows that money back into the projects the women are working on, according to Interact Club advisor and Deer Meadow Grade 8 teacher Amy Christiansen.
“Rafiki is their Swahili word for ‘friend,'” Christiansen says.
On Dec. 17, a Jumpstart teacher vs. student hockey game will be held at the arena, complete with a $2 puck toss.
“We have a hockey class -- an academy class – that learns to play hockey all semester long and then, as our kind of Christmas celebration, we go and watch (the game),” Christiansen says.
“It's pretty fun.”
During at least one of the intermissions, members of the Interact class raising money for Jumpstart roll a shopping cart out into the middle of the ice.
Jumpstart, a Canadian Tire program, raises money to help kids from financially-strapped families get a chance to play sports.
Anyone who has purchased a $2 Jumpstart red hockey puck gets a chance to toss that puck in the grocery cart.
“If they win, they get a Jumpstart basketball or a prize from Canadian Tire that has the word Jumpstart on it,” Christiansen says.
She says all of the money from those $2 pucks goes to Canadian Tire in Olds which participates in the Jumpstart program.
From Dec. 2-4 the Deer Meadow Interact Club held a sport swap and sale for Jumpstart.
Until May, club members are collecting pull tabs from pop cans, etc., to support Ronald McDonald House in Red Deer – a place where parents/families can stay while their children are hospitalized.
Since the fall semester began, the club has been very busy.
On Nov. 24-25, they held a cookie sale to raise money for the SPCA centre in Red Deer.
The highlight occurred on Oct. 27 when Interact Club members participated in We Day at the Saddledome in Calgary.
During that annual gathering, speakers and musicians endeavour to inspire youth to improve the lives of children around the world, especially those in Third World countries.
Deer Meadow Interact Club members were inspired by the event and came up with the ideas listed above as ways they could contribute.
Just a few days afterward, they sold tickets for a Halloween dance with proceeds going toward Free The Children health-care initiatives in developing countries.
On Oct. 30, they held a Witch's Brew Cauldron bake sale to support the Mountain View Food Bank.
“We donated 80 pounds of non-perishable food items to contribute to a local cause,” an Interact Club bulletin written by Grace Christiansen says.
Also, during October, members of the class sold Fair Trade items during parent-teacher conferences.
“People could go buy some handcrafted goods and enjoy free coffee samples while supporting business owners in Third World countries,” the bulletin says.
In total, that initiative raised $684.
