Glendon Students help local Family

Leadership students rally to help family who lost their home in fire.

The Glendon School’s Leadership students came together to support a local family who had recently lost their home in a fire. When the Gardipee-Somers-Horton family home burned, a few months ago, they lost pretty much everything, but the clothes on their back. That’s when the Glendon Leadership students got baking to raise $4,800 for their fellow students.

Leadership group facilitator and teacher at Glendon School, Brittany Norton, says the students came up with a great idea to raise money for the family, a cake auction. “Each of the senior leadership students donated at least one cake and the members of the community in Glendon and surrounding areas such as Bonnyville and St. Paul came together to donate cakes, so we had a total of 64 cakes”. The Leadership group, which is made up of eight senior students, in grades 7-12. There is also a junior leaders program, with 15-20 students in grades 4-6.

Part of being a leader is having that desire to make the community and the world a better place. – Brittany Norton Leadershoip Group Facilitator & Teacher at Glendon School.

The three oldest children of the Gardipee-Somers-Horton family attend school at the Glendon School and are also related to staff members at the school, so it hit close to home, says Norton. “They were very grateful and humbled by the community support and are so happy with the results of the cake auction,” Norton explains that one of the family members was especially delighted by the auction, “one of their children is part of our junior leadership group and he was very excited when he found out the proceeds of the auction were going to his family, he thanked everyone countless times for the support.” The auction raised $4,800 for the family.

The cake auction is an annual event, however typically the funds are directed to another cause, “The cake auction is an annual event and typically the proceeds would go to the leadership group to help them fund raise for volunteer trips or trips to WEday so we already had the plans for the auction laid out and  as soon as the news came out about the fire, the students were compelled to use the auction to help the family instead and worry about fundraising for other initiatives later.”

“The leadership group does a lot of initiatives around the school to try and increase morale and encourage positivity,” Norton says the group has participated in a number of initiatives throughout the year. “This year alone, they have organized activity days, Pink Shirt Day and fun dress up days, they gathered canned goods to make and deliver Christmas hampers, they prepared and served turkey lunch, and we will be doing a WEday campaign in the upcoming months as well.”

“I think the public should know how grateful we are for the support whether it was through donating cakes, spreading the word, or attending the event… any contribution was very much appreciated.” As a first year teacher, Norton was thoroughly impressed with the amount of support given to the cause, “we also have to thank our auctioneers for volunteering their time and to the staff and students of Glendon school who helped make it a success.”