Heroes of HEFC - February 2025

By Lynn Sherwood:

The WEB group of Alta Vista School, with teacher Suzanne Harp

HEFC’s community has a generous spirit.  This month our Heroes, the grade eight students of the “Where Everyone Belongs” (WEB) leadership group at Alta Vista School, stand as inspiring examples of that community spirit. Teacher Suzanne Harp, their leader, and HEFC is proud that these young people belong to our community. 

Student Kearin Bergeron-Porter explained that their group meets once a week to plan a project for each month.  Since another teachers’ family had collected food for the food bank, teacher Suzanne Harp suggested the group might want to make this a project.  Everyone agreed that this was a great idea. In December 2024, the group distributed flyers and made announcements about their project throughout Alta Vista School. 

The WEB group placed one box in each classroom for donations.  At the end of a week, they gathered and sorted all the donations and found they had collected 1615 items of nonperishable food. They separated the donations into shopping bags which were loaded into a truck, owned by the school principal, and he, along with several teachers, took the donation to HEFC on December 18 – just in time for Christmas.   This is the second year the students have organized this food drive, and they are planning to continue on a regular basis. 

Several other schools in our community also organize food drives for HEFC.  This service to our community helps everyone.  The children experience the satisfaction of doing something for others, of being part of a group effort to benefit those in need, thus establishing a model for becoming good citizens and community members.  And the food bank receives nourishing food, which we can distribute to those who need it.  It’s a win-win endeavour. We thank teacher Suzanne Harp, and her lovely young group, for their efforts to help in this challenging time.

For the full article, please see the February Vistas newspaper, either online, or at one of the many stores and offices that carry the actual paper, including the Alta Vista branch of the Ottawa Public Library.