Donations Drive

Joyce Hunter SEVEN Director

What started out as a Public Interest Advocacy Project for a group of Confederation College students ended as a labour of love.

“We are Aboriginal Law and Advocacy students and we were assigned a project to advocate on behalf of any community and any project of our choosing,” said second-year student Nicole McKay, a Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug band member. “After talking it over as a group we decided we wanted to bring high-priced sporting equipment, and in particular, skates to a First Nation that had requested assistance acquiring them.”

Skates, reasoned the group of students, are considered luxury items that often get put on the back burner in favour of other more important needs in any household no matter which community one is from in Canada.

“We contacted the youth department at Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) to see if any community had expressed interest and they hadn’t heard anything,” McKay said.

Oddly enough, the following week, a recreation worker from Cat Lake First Nation contacted NAN requesting sporting equipment for the school and its recreation program, McKay said.

“They were referred to us and, after a teleconference meeting to go over the community’s needs, we found out that the community’s only school had never quite recouped their losses when it burned down along with all the community’s recreation program sporting equipment three years ago,” she said, adding the school’s recreational and physical activity programs now all involved outdoor activities and that they were badly in need of even the most basic equipment. “Our discussion with the recreation program co-ordinator helped… and together we decided we would gather hockey skates as well as soccer balls and baseball equipment in order to ensure the students would be able to engage in sporting activity year-round.”

Two drives were held, with the first one taking place on Feb. 8, said Serene Spence, also an Aboriginal Law and Advocacy student.

“The first drive was slow, but our efforts gained momentum as we got the word out,” she said. “We also got savvy and began to use the local media, created a Facebook event, we sent out mass emails and approached as many people and organizations we thought could help.”

At that point, the donations came pouring in.

“We had to arrange for drop off points and we were fortunate and grateful to those who offered to help – one was at the Student Union office at the college and the other was at the Sports Dome,” McKay said.

In all, 12 hockey bags of equipment were collected, which included 70 pairs of hockey skates with extra laces and hand sharpeners, a full compliment of baseball equipment including bats, gloves, baseballs, a T-ball set, and soccer and footballs including team jersies for both.

“We were further amazed and humbled when WinMar Restoration, a local company that specializes in property water and fire damage restoration, contacted us to offer to clean all the used equipment for the First Nation before it was sent up to them,” McKay said, adding Wasaya Airways was another major contributor. “Wasaya generously donated the freight space to get the equipment shipped up to the First Nation.”

And it didn’t stop there.

“Canadian Tire also contacted us and donated brand new baseball equipment to add to the shipment,” McKay said, adding two students from the program were then able to visit the community to see the results of their class’ advocacy project. “We visited every class in the school and the general response from the students was that they were excited, happy and thankful for all the fantastic donations they had received. It was clear they were truly happy and that the combined efforts and donations of the community in Thunder Bay were very much welcomed and appreciated.”

Spence said the students of the Aboriginal Law and Advocacy class have expressed a deep sense of accomplishment at the end of their project.

“We feel that way because we are aware that the work we did will continue to make the youth happy long after our semester has ended and that makes us feel good,” she said. For McKay, the experience was well worth the effort.

“We could see the relationship between the Aboriginal community and that of the community of Thunder Bay being established as the work was underway,” she said. “It was truly inspiring.”

Photo submitted by Nicole McKay