Students at Simon Fraser University are organizing a comedy fundraiser to help the Special Olympics.
The goal is to raise $10,000, and they have an impressive line-up of comedians, including Ivan Decker (see the video below), Byron Bertram (of Nyquil commercial fame), Darcy Michael, Greg Kettner, Dylan Rhymer and Bibake Uppal.
CTV weathercaster Marke Driesschen will make a guest appearance, and Kyle Jones is hosting.
Comedy for a Cause is set for Wednesday, Jan. 22, at SFU theatre on the Burnaby campus.
Doors open at 6 p.m., and there will be drinks, free appetizers, a photo booth and music. The show starts at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $15 to $20, available at the Simon Fraser Student Society office.
Teaching award
Kudos are in order for Burnaby teacher Janey Lee, who recently won a Prime Minister’s Award for excellence in teaching.
Lee lives in Burnaby but teaches at Vancouver’s Thunderbird Elementary. Lee was selected for making sure her lessons are relevant to students from a variety of different cultures.
She also collaborated with SPEC, the Society Promoting Environmental Conservation, to build planters for students to grow vegetables while learning about food security.
Lee also garnered media coverage on her school’s breakfast program, which led to more donations, and she also raised $30,000 on her own, by running teacher workshops during the summer. She donated the money to her school to help pay for playground equipment.
Heart warming
Students at Burnaby’s Moscrop Secondary went out of their way to help others this Christmas.
A group of Moscrop’s Grade 12 students baked 40 bags of cookies and called up Lookout Emergency Aid Society’s downtown Vancouver shelter, offering to deliver the sweets, according to shelter resource worker Louise Jackson.
The students delivered trays of cookies and brought blankets and dog biscuits to the pet-friendly shelter. They also threw in a donation of $111.85.
“Our guests were thrilled to receive afternoon treats as we rely on donations for snacks, usually reserved for 9 p.m. only,” Jackson wrote in an email to the NOW. “Those of us working were also touched that the students had taken the trouble to come down to the shelter in person. We thought it was a class act. It was during the cold snap and all the blankets were given away that evening.”
New AP program
Burnaby North Secondary was selected as one of six schools in the country for a new advanced placement program that teaches students critical thinking, collaborative problem solving and research skills.
The program is called AP Capstone, and it’s set to start in Burnaby this fall.
Advanced placement programs allow students to earn university credits while still in high school, and Burnaby North was selected because of the school’s past history of success with the program.
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