Four students at A. E. Bowers Elementary School in Airdrie worked together to raise $1,509 for the Alberta Children’s Hospital.
The students sold lollipops for a dollar to their friends and families through a Valentine’s Day Love Lollies fundraiser.
Principal Jocelyn Littlefair at A.E. Bowers said the four grade four and five students, Jaime Favell, Thomas Vicei, Noah Kellar, and Toby Conduct, approached staff with the idea in early January.
“They took the initiative, they did signs, they did posters, they did announcements, they went all over,” Littlefair said. “They just jumped right on board for it, so we're really proud of those kids.”
Littlefair said the school had done a similar fundraiser over six years ago and said Jaime remembered that campaign.
“Now that she's coming to an age where she is leaving our school, she wanted to revive it and bring it back and make it a yearly tradition here because she thought it was very special,” Littlefair said.
She added that when students have a project they’re passionate about and want to take a leadership initiative, staff help to foster their ideas.
“We'll move mountains to help them to make that happen,” Littlefair said.
Jaime chose to donate their fundraised dollars to the Alberta Children’s Hospital due to her volunteer experiences with her grandma and aunt.
“She's been around it since she was little, and so sometimes she helps out with anything she can,” said Jaime’s mom, Lindsay Favell.
Favell added that Jaime loves to help people and goes out of her way to make sure everyone is happy. Knowing she can raise money to help kids she’s met at the Children’s Hospital means a lot.
In terms of how much they raised, her mom said she was floored.
“She came home after the first couple of days and went, ‘mom, you have no idea how much we raised.’” Favell said.
Carmen Dressler, lead for the Kids Helping Kids program at the Alberta Children's Hospital Foundation attended the school’s assembly on March 14 to accept the cheque.
The Kids Helping Kids program is set up for anyone under the age of 18 who wants to help out.
“It can be a variety of initiatives from giving their birthday money to schools, doing bigger initiatives to this right here, the Love Lollies campaign at A.E. Bowers,” Dressler said.
The money raised by A.E. Bowers is going to the greatest needs of the hospital, including programs, equipment, or research.
“We kind of just put it in a fund and the doctors and experts are able to pull from that for whatever funding initiative kind of comes up,” Dressler said.
Every year, kids in Alberta raise around $500,000 for the hospital, she added.
Dressler noted there are several other young Airdronians raising funds for the hospital.
George McDougall High School’s bike-a-thon is coming to a close at the end of March and has raised over a million dollars specifically for expenses related to cancer at the Children’s Hospital.
