Centennial CVI is ‘passing the baton’ for literacy
May 24, 2017
GUELPH, Ontario – On May 23, Centennial Collegiate Vocational Institute held a Pass the Baton event at the school, raising funds and awareness for global literacy. On the last week of school in St. Lucia, thousands of students, parents and teachers are running in a 198 km relay for literacy. This relay was organized by local charity OneWorld Schoolhouse Foundation.
OneWorld Schoolhouse Foundation is a charitable organization that helps promote literacy in the Eastern Caribbean. They donate books, promote reading festivals and more. Their goal is to create readers who can imagine new responses to a challenging future in the developing world. OneWorld Schoolhouse Foundation works with Canadian schools, students, organization and more to bring literacy to the Caribbean.
Upper Grand DSB teacher, Sonya White, along with her husband Richard Clewes have been bringing books, authors and literacy to the Caribbean for several years. While visiting St. Lucia with her daughter, they were curious about bookstores and decided to stop at a school and speak with the principal. There, they learned that there are no bookstores in St. Lucia and there are very few libraries. As a mother and teacher, this was unacceptable to White and sparked the founding of the OneWorld Schoolhouse Foundation. Over the past five years, they have collected hundreds of thousands of books for Caribbean communities. To show their support for students in St. Lucia, CCVI students and staff did their part on May 23 to help raise money for literacy in St. Lucia.
CCVI teacher, Robin Todd, organized the Pass the Baton event. Todd has run in the Boston Marathon and is passionate about this cause. Featured at the event was Canadian Olympic runner Eric Gillis, who is a three time Olympian. Gillis was on hand to help promote the event and run the track with students. Students battled Gillis for the title of fastest runner at the event and tried to beat him in a 100m dash.
To help cool down from the relay, students hosted a bake sale for the charity, which included baked goods and jumbo freezies.
Students and staff energetically ran the track and passed the baton to one another to raise money and awareness for this cause.