A new eco-friendly water fountain may soon be on its way to St. Mary School after 21 students took to the streets for the first-ever bike-a-thon, raising $1,270 in three laps around town May 16.
Combined with $1,100 in corporate donations, the school now has $2,370 to put towards the $2,000 fountain, which has a faucet for ease of refilling water bottles. It will also be a much needed replacement for one of the school’s older fountains.
“It’s a good cause,” said student Thomas Liber as he strapped on his helmet. “It will be a way faster way for us to fill up our water bottles when we’re doing activities. It’s going to be fun.”
To partake in the 30-kilometre ride, students had to collect at least $30.
The idea originally started as a pun on the word cycle after four students Camille Williams, Emma Gauthier, Brookelyn Felske and Ashley Tymkow were brainstorming ways they could raise awareness around the school about recycling and climate change, following their attendance at the March 9, 2017 Gener8 Youth Energy and Climate Leadership summit. Originally planned for last fall, it had to be postponed due to weather issues.
Teacher Ty Snell, who biked with the students, said the project was entirely student lead.
“The girls showed a lot of leadership to get this project up and running and it was nice to see us up and running and be able to follow through with it,” he said. “We’re always applying to go to more of these workshops and get students out and get new ideas flowing. Next year we might be attending another one of these conferences and so hopefully we’ll go from there and another one of these projects.”
Overall, Snell said the bike-a-thon was a huge success.
“We had a pretty good representation of our junior and senior high and we had a lot of students that didn’t want to bike but still were able to raise us some money,” he said. “Everybody was pretty excited even if they weren’t biking. We were singing songs as we went along. The kids had a lot of fun.”
Also biking with the students was teacher Dan Krywko, who said it was great to see the students show initiative and take some ownership of their schools.
“It’s a positive impact for the entire school, especially for the younger students that are going to use the fountain,” he said.
