By Pepper Parr
November 1, 2016
BURLINGTON, ON
Teachers do a lot more than teach.
They are one of the sets of eyes that watch our children as they grow from that shy little girl who steps cautiously into a classroom with her Mom on that first day of school to seeing the change taking [;ace in a boy because the family he is part of is falling apart.
That teacher is the one who realizes when a student is ready for a bigger idea and knows just which book should be given to the child.
They see the student who comes to school in the winter weather with just a heavy sweater – there is no winter coat.
She notes that the snow is deep and that boy is wearing just running shoes – there are no winter boots.
And she notes as well that on pizza days there are a couple of kids who don’t show up because they don’t have the money to pay for their pizza.
There is a group – the Halton Learning Foundation that is in place to provide some of the money needed to fill these gaps.
There are other organizations, Food4kids is one, that provides food for those that are going to go home to a house where there may not be a real square meal on the table.
Later this month the Learning Foundation will be holding their Benefit Bash. The event isn’t one of the fancier, splashy events where people get to wear that dress.
It isn’t a major event on the social calendar – but it is an important event. It raises some of the money that gets used to pay for some of the needs that students have that their parents can’t handle.
The business of taking care of these situations is always slim resources chasing growing needs.
On the 16th school day of this school year the request for funds was double what it had been the previous year at the same time. The social helpers in this city can see serious problems coming their way.
The Benefit Bash takes place November 10th at the Burlington Convention Centre.
This might be one of those places you could send a donation along to.
They will be announcing their No Student Left Behind campaign at the Benefit Bash – this is something we are looking forward to telling you a lot more about.
