Shhhhhhhh......We are Silent

On Thursday we participated in the we are silent campaign. At first we thought it was going to be kind of easy but we thought wrong. It was really hard to do. We tried to stay quiet for the day but we found it quite difficult. We bought some tags for $1 and if you look closely at the picture you will see shhhhhhh all over the sign in handwriting. It’s important for us to participate because some people don’t have a voice to speak up for themselves. We raised $601.94 for trying to make a school in Nicaragua. This is a great way to show other people that we care about trying to make sure everyone gets an education.

 –Keanna and Karlee

We Are Silent

The BHS Spin Club is running the We Are Silent campaign again this year. People all over the world are going to remain silent on April 17th to take a stand for people whose voices are not heard. For $1 students will be able to participate in a vow of silence by purchasing a We Are Silent tag. The money raised will go to our global initiative which is supporting education in Nicaragua. We hope you will join us in supporting this cause. Click here to find out more about this campaign and to learn about Malala's story.

Malala and Craig Kielburger

“We realize the importance of our voices only when we are silenced.” —Malala Yousafzai

We Create Change

S.P.I.N. Club is currently running the We Create Change campaign. Classrooms have each received a schoolhouse to collect all kinds of coins. S.P.I.N. Club members have been going around to classrooms on We Care Wednesdays to empty the schoolhouses. This money will help the Free the Children organization to build 200 schools all over the world. Twenty dollars goes towards one brick......let's do our part to help out. Thanks for your support.

We Are Love

S.P.I.N. Club sold buttons for the We Are Love campaign for Free the Children. We had 108 buttons this year and we sold out in 2 days! Thanks to everyone for the supporting this great cause.
Happy Valentine's Day.

We Scare Hunger and Unicef

The SPIN Club helped to organize the We Scare Hunger Campaign for Free the Children. Students were asked to bring in non-perishable food items for Winnipeg Harvest. Today the members helped to weigh the items and we were thrilled to find out that our total was 477 pounds(216 kilograms)! WOW! Thanks to the BHS community for supporting this great cause. The items are being picked up on Thursday, November 7 by Winnipeg Harvest.
Our class raised $194.55 for Unicef. Way to go Room 30!! We reached and surpassed our goal of $100. Our school brought in $2 406.36 --- awesome results.

Helping Others

The students at BHS are busy working together to help others in need. Our SPIN Club is supporting a Free the Chilrdren campaign called We Scare Hunger. They are asking for non-perishable food items to be brought to the school for Winnipeg Harvest. Have you been listening to the morning announcements? Information is being shared with the school to encourage everyone to bring in food items. The top 10 items needed are: 1: canned fish and poultry, 2: canned fruit and vegetables, 3: canned stew, chili, brown beans, 4: peanut butter, 5: baby food, 6: pasta, 7: rice, 8: canned spaghetti sauce or tomatoes, 9: cereal, 10: canned soup. We will be collecting food until the end of October.

Also Ms Wasney's class is running the Unicef campaign. Information was sent out to let you know how you can donate to support this great cause. Last year our school was one of Manitoba's top 3 fundraisers for Unicef. Wow, that's amazing! Donation forms are due November 1.

I know these great campaigns will be supported by our kind and caring BHS community!
- Mrs. T :)

S.P.I.N. Club News!

We received a special package today from Free the Children. Inside the box was a letter, certificate and signed picture of some children in Nicaragua. What a great way to end the week. The S.P.I.N. Club has done some awesome work this year. Thanks to everyone for your support and dedication.

S.P.I.N. Club News

Our SPIN Club was recognized in the Herald today. This community newspaper features stories from East Kildonan, North Kildonan, Elmwood, Transcona, Birds Hill and East St. Paul. The SPIN Club at Bird's Hill School has been involved in a variety Free the Children campaigns throughout the year. It is very exciting to read about the great work these students are doing. What a wonderful feeling to know we are helping other people locally and globally. Alex from our class is featured on the front page with Abby from grade 6. Awesome work everyone! You can read the article here.

Mrs. T :)

Outreach Speaker Amber Schuler Visits BHS!

Hello blog readers, I will tell you about a special guest that visited our school.

Today, a lady named Amber Schuler came to tell us about “Free the children”. If you didn’t know what free the children is, then I will tell you. Free the children is a non-profit organization to help people (focused on children) that don’t have enough things to survive. It started in 1995, so it has lasted 18 years.

Amber told us this story:

In 1987, four year old Iqbal Masih (pronounced Ikball Masee) was a boy who lived in a poor family. There was not a school nearby, and the closest one was multiple kilometers away. All the water was so dirty it looked like chocolate milk. These men, one day, had come to Iqbal’s small village to “give children a better life” (go to school, give them clean water and good food etc.). Once the men came to Iqbal’s house, his parents agreed hoping it would be better for their small Iqbal. His parents were given a contract, but they had not gone to school and did not know how to read, so they signed the contract with a fingerprint. The parents were paid 600 rupees (approximately $16 dollars) Iqbal was taken to a gloomy carpet factory, where his nimble miniature hands tied knots for carpets. He was all chained up to prevent him from egress (to leave).  He miraculously escaped the factory in 1993 (age 10) and for two years, traveled around telling the world about child labour and how wrong it was. In 1995 (age 12) he returned to his home in Pakistan to see his family. He was riding his bike with his cousins to visit his uncle. Laughing, having fun, riding his bike with his cousins that was the life. During the ride, a horrible thing happened. Suddenly, his cousin was shot in the arm and Iqbal was fatally shot by who is thought to be the carpet factory men for exposing the child labour secret. Halfway around the world, in Toronto Canada, a twelve year old boy by the name of Craig Keilburger, the same age as Iqbal, was searching in the newspaper before school for his morning comics and saw the horrific headline. TWELVE YEAR OLD PAKISTAN BOY MURDERED!!!  Craig went to school that day and asked his teacher if he could explain his reading. His teacher said yes, and he read the article aloud. After he read the article, he explained how important he thought it was to start a club to help the needy people of the world of all of these horrifying things. He asked if anyone wanted to join, and gradually, 11 hands of Craig’s friends rose. Their club was named “twelve twelve year olds” but when one turned thirteen, it was changed to free the children. Today, only Craig remains in the group, but plenty others have joined.

I got a very powerful message when this was told to us. At our school we have a club and we fundraise to donate to free the children, and that is how we got Amber to come to our school. We have helped to start building a whole school in El Trapiche, Nicaragua and when we do another fundraiser, this makes me want to be part of it more than before. I hope free the children can help many more places worldwide. People like Craig make this world a lot better. This was a very powerful message to everyone in our class and the other two grades that came.

Thank you Amber from everyone in our class.

-Alex

We Are Love

The S.P.I.N. Club is taking part in the Free the Children We are Love fundraising campaign. We are raising money for our Adopt a Village community in Nicaragua. For $2 you receive a fabulous button and a Valentine's Day card which explains how your donation is making a difference. Three buttons have already been sold out! Thanks for supporting this campaign and sharing the love!
- Mrs. T :)


S.P.I.N. Club members Renee, Hunter, Nathan and Lindsay
 are busy selling buttons during lunch on Tuesday.