Bow Valley High School hosted its annual Time for Hope charity event May 5. This year’s Time for Hope: Gives Back took on a different format from previous events and focused on giving back to the Cochrane community. The students of Bow Valley High School recognize that this year has been a tougher economic climate than previous years, so instead of asking for donations from our local community, they wanted to say thank you for all of the continued support of Bow Valley’s charitable initiatives. Community service seemed an appropriate way to do so.
The student organizers responsible for planning this year’s event were also inspired by the incredible work done by Cochrane Family and Community Support Services (FCSS) and the programs that it provides for the greater Cochrane area. They wanted the event to embody the FCSS’s philosophy of “helping where help is needed” in order to find a way to give back in a meaningful manner. It is for these reasons that the student organizers chose to forgo a formal evening event in favour of a day of student service and a celebration evening.
During the day, more than 100 Bow Valley High School students descended upon the greater Cochrane area to volunteer their time at more than 25 different locations. Teams of students cleaned stores for local business owners, landscaped for community members, taught at our feeder schools, cleaned up Cochrane’s parks, and helped set up for community events. Not only did the student volunteers work hard, but they did so with smiles on their faces because each and every student who was involved was thoroughly invested in making a difference.
For me, one of the coolest parts to this event was pitching it to local business owners. It was a very neat experience to be able to ask them if there was anything that we, as high school students, would be able to help them with. It made a pleasant change from asking them to make a donation to one of our events. Their reactions to our request were pretty incredible! Even if businesses didn’t have any jobs for us to help them with, they were very touched that we had made the effort to see if there was anything that we could do for them. In many cases, businesses generously chose to make a donation to our event or to the FCSS because they thought that what we were trying to achieve was something special.
Working with the talented crew of leadership students who made this event possible has been one of the highlights of my high school career. As I reflect on what we managed to achieve with Time for Hope: Gives Back, I am grateful to be a part of a community that supports and encourages the initiatives of students. I am also proud to be a Bow Valley Bobcat, to be a part of a school who not only talks about the importance of giving back but who actively embodies it by creating opportunities for its students to make a difference.
Megan White is a Grade 12 student at Bow Valley High School
