A group of Breslau Public School students have taken it upon themselves to have a more active role at their school.

So far this year, the Grade 7 and 8 students that form the leadership group have taken the lead in several events, including a play day in October for younger students, a food drive that collected 55 boxes of items for the food bank, a hat and mitt drive, a movie night and an arts night.

“I wanted to do it because when I was in younger grades, kids in Grade 7 and 8 helped out with stuff and I want to continue that for the younger grades,” said Moraya Dasilva of the motivation for the leadership group.

“You would always look up to the older kids, so I want to be one of those role models for them,” added Tavia Cowburn of providing activities for the younger students.

The food drive required a team effort from all involved.

“We had a team of at least 10 people that every day for two weeks we would go from class to class and collect food donations from students and teachers,” explained Luke Manson.

Meeting every Thursday during their second break, the leadership group has also spearheaded daily activities throughout the year, including announcements, providing support to teachers of younger students during lunch hour, as well refereeing and scorekeeping of junior intramural sports.

They have also run a nutrition for learning program that sees them keep two carts stocked with food items on a daily basis. This requires students to sacrifice time during breaks and their lunch hour.

“If you need something because you’re hungry, you can always just go grab whatever you want. And it’s anyone can grab whatever because then it’s less awkward for everybody,” explained Cowburn.

Teacher Chris Wade said that while being a part of the leadership groups is time-consuming, the students are dedicated to making it successful.

“Everyone consistently shows up and helps. We have so many helpers that there are enough people, but it’s a lot of work. Because there’s so many people and it’s a lot of time that some of them take to do these events, because there’s always something that occurs or something that’s happening,” Wade said.

“They have to come early in the morning for announcements. Our movie night was for our community to get them back into the school. And we had to stay after school, we had dinner, we sold snacks and we put on a movie night. But that takes hours of extra time that people are giving. All these things occurred during school, but they take outside of school time as well to plan,” Wade added.

That commitment has helped the group meet the challenges it has faced along the way, student Brinley Cartier said.

“Planning events can sometimes be hard because sometimes you run into trouble – for doing an outdoor event, there’s weather, and you kind of have to get all the pieces to match up and you need everybody to help, which I feel like we’ve been pretty successful with this year, having everybody help, because leadership is such a strong team this year,” she said.

“They don’t have to do it. But they choose to,” Manson added.

Future items the leadership team is planning include a carnival event, working with the Marillac Place shelter, a spring food drive, and the Grade 8 celebration.