The students at École St. Patrick High School in Yellowknife just took part in a unique event to help get some extra food on the shelves at the Salvation Army.
With less than two weeks before Christmas, this time of year always proves to be the busiest for the Salvation Army and other food bank programs. Given St Patrick’s close proximity to the Salvation Army Yellowknife headquarters, a couple hundred students and volunteers were able to put together a human chain, and transport several dozen hampers to the building by hand.
(Photo by Connor Pitre/My True North Now)
The event has been going on for 13 years now, having been started in 2010. Students and staff from St Pats gather the food, as well as toys and monetary contributions, and send it down to the Salvation Army to help with their Christmas Relief Hamper Program.
(Photo by Connor Pitre/My True North Now)
Derek Pluchinski, the Program Manager at the Salvation Army, shared how their food bank has been performing this year.
“We’ve been busy. It’s another demanding year. I think the challenges of the economy have hurt a lot of people, so we’ve seen increased demand on our resources. We help about fifty families a week through our food bank, but with our Christmas Hamper program specifically, we’re going to be distributing toys as well to about 230 children this Christmas season and in excess of 300 families with Christmas hampers.”
Christina Silzer, one of the teachers at St Pats’ who helps to organize the event, shared that the students at the school are always quite eager to take part in the chain. The students themselves help to plan the year’s events in October, and have made sure to do the chain every year since 2010. 2020 was the only year they were unable to hold the event due to the pandemic.
(Photo by Connor Pitre/My True North Now)
Silzer added that the chain is made up of kids from all grades. The Grade 12 students lined up at the far end of the chain, closest to the Salvation Army, and showed their excitement quite well, as this was their final time participating in the event.
Christina shared that this year, they were able to fill approximately 40 hampers for the Salvation Army.
