This year’s winners of the City of Burnaby Christmas card contest are a pair right out of a great kids’ book.
First, there’s the names: Flora Su and Floria Gu.
Wouldn’t it be funny if they knew each other?, you say.
Well, in fact, they do.
They’re best friends, and they’re both in Olwen Cowan’s Grade 4/5 class at Capitol Hill Elementary.
But that’s not where they met.
“We met in tap and realized our names were really similar,” says Floria.
“Whenever the teacher said to do buddies, we always did it together,” says Flora.
Since they attended different elementary schools at the time, the end of tap classes threatened to cut short their friendship, but they soon found they had more in common than dance and their similar-sounding names.
They’re both gifted learners, and they were reunited this year in the Burnaby school district’s multi-age cluster class (MACC) pilot at Capitol Hill.
“We just ended up in the same class and saw that we knew each other,” Floria says.
When the pair first found out about the city’s Christmas card contest, they wanted to work on it together, but they were told it was an individual project, so they cheered each other on instead.
This is the second year Burnaby city council has given Grade 5 students in the city a chance to get a work of art featured on the greeting cards mayor and council send out during the holiday season.
The only criteria is that the design has to feature the word “Burnaby” and represent the festive season in the city.
“I always thought Christmas was really fun and happy, so then I looked around my house and saw all the different decorations,” says Flora, describing the inspiration for her drawing.
“I was just thinking about what Christmas was,” says Floria.
The two winners were honoured during a council meeting at city hall Dec. 8 and presented with T-shirts featuring their designs, 25 Christmas cards each, a City of Burnaby mug and other swag.
Floria described the event as a “glorious time,” and meeting the mayor was a highlight for both girls.
“I thought he was pretty nice and funny,” Flora said.
