South Surrey students cook up $700 boost for BC Children’s Hospital

A trio of Grade 7 students at Chantrell Creek Elementary are being praised after cooking up a way to boost the school’s fundraising efforts for BC Children’s Hospital.

A bake sale organized by Olivia Goodman, Sophia Awan and Poppy Bower-Gibbs – as part of school’s contribution to the hospital’s Jean Up (formerly Jeans Day) campaign – added more than $700 to Team Chantrell’s cache of online donations.

The total means results of the month-long fundraiser have surpassed $3,200.

“I am thrilled,” said teacher Brenda Webster, noting the amount itself is not what’s most important.

“It’s that (the students) have supported and embraced this. The kids are involved.”

Webster, who became the inclusion teacher at Chantrell this school year, organized similar campaigns at her previous post at Bayridge Elementary, and said it’s important to foster the enthusiasm that students show; teach them that every contribution, no matter how small, counts.

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At Chantrell this year, after assuring two kids who asked about donating their change that “everything counts,” Webster gladly accepted their donations of two quarters and a loonie, respectively.

“I think they should feel great about that,” she said. “It’s an honest desire to help out.”

Webster said the bake-sale organizers told her they were motivated to help because they “know kids who have been there and we wanted to do something nice for BCCH.”

“They came in and they were so excited about what they’d done,” she said. “That kind of thing can’t be acknowledged enough.”

This year, investment firm Odlum Brown pledged to match donations to the Jean Up campaign, to a maximum $30,000.