Those sugary treats called candy canes are doing a lot more than tasting good at St. Teresa Catholic Elementary School in Elmira. By selling them students were able to raise enough money to buy not one goat, but six for families overseas.
Jaimee Battler was one of the students inspired to help.
“Our whole school was trying to get money because We Day inspired us,” Battler said. “So we started the candy cane sale. The money that we raised, part of it goes overseas to families to get a goat.”
These goats will help provide a future for families in need. They’ll be able to sell the goat milk and use the money they make to buy food for themselves.
The program the students are supporting is called We Create Change, run by the charity Free the Children. RBC also helps by educating the families to use their goats to become entrepreneurs. Teacher Pamela U’Ren said one dairy goat provides a lot of milk.
All of a sudden they have their own little business,” U Ren said. “They can get more goats and maybe sell some of their milk to get eggs and it’s kind of exciting.”
She said the children attended We Day in Toronto and came back inspired to make a difference, which sparked this project.
Free the Children was founded in 1995 by Craig Kielburger when he was just 12 years old. His brother Marc soon joined as co-founder. The Thornhill natives wanted to help fight against child labour and poverty.
The organization is focused on empowering youth to make a change in the world and involves 2.3 million youth across the globe in education and development programs.
Teacher Mary Russell said the day before the fundraising deadline, they were just short of enough money to buy one goat.
“We had our Christmas concert, so I decided to do a little announcement saying ‘we’re almost there, we’ve almost got enough for a goat – bring in your money tomorrow for candy canes,’” Russell said. “And we ended up getting $485. That was pretty amazing. We’re actually going to have enough for six goats.”
She added it’s fantastic how the children and parents came through. Some of the little kids even came up to her saying, “I’ve got a dollar in my piggy bank. I’m going to bring it in tomorrow.”
Battler says she feels good about how much they raised because it means their school is doing something great for another community that needs help.
“That made me and probably a lot of others and the teachers feel really good about how much we raised and how many goats we can send overseas.”
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