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Back To School Celebration Major Success

Wednesday, September 2, 2015 @ 12:47 PM

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Vincent Sherry  offers back pack colour choices to 9 year old Julian MacRae, as  9 year old Ryder Andres looks on – photos 250News

Prince George, B.C.-The line up  snaked its way from inside the Prince George Native Friendship Centre on to the sidewalk and  out on to  Third Avenue as children and parents  looked to take  part in  the  Back to School Celebration  at the PGNFC.

It is the first time  the Prince George Native Friendship Centre has held such an event,  and Executive Director Barb Ward-Burkitt couldn’t be more pleased “It’s really important  to us at the Friendship Centre that we promote excitement  about going to school, that we celebrate going to school, that it be a coming together and supporting that going to school.”

Creating excitement about  going back to school  is important for all children, but  especially  for Aboriginal students who she hopes will  be encouraged to  complete their studies and graduate.

The Friendship Centre worked with the Royal Bank  to get the funds needed through the  Bank’s “Eagles” program  “They have  supported us in terms of financial resources that we’ve been able to match from the  Friendship Centre as well as other businesses throughout the community.”pgnfc

The event  offered up a free backpack, filled with school supplies,  a free lunch,  some clothing options,  free haircuts,  and free photos.

( at right, 9 year old Daniel Junior Sampson  gets his hair cut)

There  were 700 backpacks available, and enough  food  for 1,000  as  Ward-Burkitt  says parents  on hand  would also be fed.

But what if  you are child number 701?  No worries says  Ward-Burkitt, “If you’re child number 701 we actually have some extra supplies just in case we go over because  we don’t want to turn anybody away.”

“We are hoping to make this an annual event”  says Ward-Burkitt as she looked at the long line up of folks, “As you can see it looks  pretty popular, so I think people would like it if we could do that.”

Below,  some  young folks  get their lunch at the food truck on the PGNFC’s  parking lot

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Comments

What an amazing event! The Prince George Native Friendship Centre and the Royal Bank are to be commended. This was outstanding! Super fun!!!!

Awesome event! Now wouldn’t it be nice if they had such events for the low income kids regardless of whether they were aboriginal or not. Lot’s of little guys and gals would love to have this happen for them.

This was for low income regardless of race. All were welcome. That is the PGNFC way!

This is a real good thing that those people did.
I can imagine most of the kids were thrilled, new gear and a cool lunch!
That should prime them to look forward to going back to school.
The free haircuts were an awesome idea, I’ll bet some Moms and Dads were happy about that!

metalman.

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