Eager elementary students from the GIAG extended school day program at Winchester Public School will be contributing their fair share of this season’s Christmas spirit with a caroling activity on December 14. Participating children will walk from the school to Sweet Corner Park and will be singing some of everyone’s favourite Christmas tunes at the park by about 4:15 pm. The kids will be at the park for at least an hour, and welcome as many audience members as possible!
The group will be handing out candy canes as a goodwill gesture aimed at spreading Christmas cheer and a dose of much needed love and kindness. Should the weather be too poor for the children to travel or stay outside for an extended period of time, the caroling will be moved to December 19.
Program staff Emily Quinto originally came up with the idea for the caroling. “I asked the kids if they wanted to do something special for Christmas for their parents,” Emily explained. “I suggested learning a song and a choreographed dance to make a video to send to their parents for Christmas. One of the kids later asked if we could do Christmas caroling instead.”
Emily was enthusiastic about the caroling idea, but she didn’t like the idea of knocking on people’s doors when they’re just getting home from work or sitting down to dinner since it would be disruptive to them. She therefore thought of Sweet Corner Park, where only willing participants will hear the music, with potentially many more audience members than if the group had knocked on doors.
Meanwhile, student Evey Vowles had an idea to make the event extra special – the collection of donations for a local food bank. While monetary donations cannot be accepted due to the accounting required (GIAG is a non-profit organization), program staff let Evey know that she and her peers could certainly collect non-perishable food items during the caroling activity.
When asked why it was important to her to collect food bank donations, Evey responded, “I wanted to do this to help the food bank so they have enough food to feed people for Christmas.” There will be a tote for canned and boxed goods and other non-perishable food items set out at the park during the caroling, and all items collected will be brought to the House of Lazarus location in Mountain.
Come out and celebrate the joys of the Christmas season on December 14 (inclement weather date: December 19)! Merry Christmas to all and best wishes for a joyous holiday season!