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December

Gilmore Supports the Burnaby Christmas Bureau and Seniors at Seton Villa

“Thanks for your support with your fabulous toy drive [and] wonderful contributions to our Christmas Bureau!” ~ Burnaby Community Services

We had an amazing response to this year’s Angel Project (gifts for children through the Burnaby Christmas Bureau) and our new local initiative, Be a Santa to a Senior at Seton Villa. With all of the gifts collected, we were able to pass on over 130 gifts to the Burnaby Christmas Bureau and over 60 presents to our seniors. In addition, we also delivered personalized cards from classes addressed to individual seniors at Seton Villa. This greatly exceeded our initial goal of ensuring that all seniors at Seton Villa without families would get at least one gift. We cannot thank everyone enough for their kindness and generosity! Thank you, Gilmore Community for making it all happen!!

“I received the packages yesterday and from the bottom of my heart thank you SO much for all do the hard work that went into this from the kids and organizers. And what a fantastic idea Marcy for the names! I’m so glad we did that because we’ve never had personalized letters before and it’s just going to be so extra special. I’ll be sure to take lots of pic-tures when we distribute. Thank you so much again, Alexis” ~ Seton Villa Retirement Centre
Categories
December

Greater Vancouver Food Bank Group Volunteering

Thank you to everyone who came and helped out!

Our first Gilmore Community volunteer shift at the Greater Vancouver Food Bank head office warehouse (located at 8345 Winston Street in Burnaby) was a fun, productive and rewarding time. Not only did we sort through four massive bins of food, the morning also turned out to be a great opportunity to meet and work with a variety of Gilmore parents (from new Gilmore families with their first child in Kindergarten to long-timers with their youngest in Grade 7). We were told that our crew worked hard and is welcome back any time.

Getting involved is a great way to show your kids that you take an interest in their school and school community. We are securing future dates for Gilmore group volunteering shifts and will post these once confirmed. Please consider joining us on one or more of our future dates!

Categories
December

Jingle Bell Walk & Food Drive

Gilmore’s 5th annual Jingle Bell Walk was held on Tuesday, December 1st and was a big success in so many ways. Our students – with their signs, bells and cheers – walked through the Heights community and around Seton Villa Retirement Centre, spreading cheer to our seniors and letting the community know about our upcoming food drive.

“I just wanted to say… today was the most fun we have had in a really, really long time here at Seton Villa. The residents were talking about it all day and how we got our own private parade!!! Thank you SO much for including us and for doing this, it was just what we needed to get into the holiday spirit.” ~ Alexis Zornio, Recreation Manager, Seton Villa

Carolers from Burnaby Family Life were stationed across the street from the entrance to Seton Villa and greatly added to the festivities!

We had a beautiful sunny day and seeing all of our students and teachers cheering, smiling and singing really showed how much everyone enjoyed this community outing.

With changes due to the District’s Covid-19 health and safety guidelines, instead of picking up food throughout the neighbourhood this year, we had the Jingle Bell Food Drive(thru) on Friday, December 4th at the school. The turnout was amazing and we were able to collect a significant amount of food (and donations!) to fill the community office’s emergency food cupboard. Way to go Gilmore Community! Your generosity is amazing and greatly appreciated.

We would like to thank all of our parent volunteers for coming out and helping at the Food Drive. We would also like to thank Ms. Longeau’s class for helping to sort and ‘shuttle’ the food into the school. Great job, everybody!

And lastly, we would like to give a big heartfelt thanks to Mr. Morton for starting this wonderful tradition and to all of the teachers and staff for taking time out of their teaching schedule to walk with the students and to ensure that this event was a tremendous success. We appreciate all of the work and energy you put in to making Gilmore such a fantastic school and learning environment. ~ Marcy McCabe & Teresa Zaitsoff, Gilmore Community Council Co-Chairs