New SDSS club aims to build community, both in school and out

A new Stratford District secondary school club is aiming to build more connections with the community while also helping those in need.

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This school year, Grade 12 student Lucy Chung started the school’s Community Stratford Club, which already completed its first successful project after making a donation of hygiene products to the House of Blessing and the Connection Center just before Christmas.

“(This) is something that I’ve wanted to start for a while. I did feel that, within our school, we have many different clubs that kind of target different things. There’s lots of sports. I’m part of many different clubs. We have the great Eco Club, an amazing student council, but one thing I did feel was lacking was some community outreach,” Chung said.

While the school does have an equity class, Chung said she hopes that starting the club will make it easier to build and maintain connections with community organizations. The club, she added, will also make it easier for altruistic-minded projects to happen throughout the year.

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“A lot of fundraisers happen specifically around the holidays, but there’s people in need throughout the community the entire year, and I want to kind of keep that in mind. . . . So I had the idea to start this club so that you would continue doing projects and fundraisers throughout the year. And also just because I felt that, if we have an established club, it’s easier to connect with certain groups,” Chung said.

The club, which has around 20 members, called its first successful project Hope Totes. Chung’s grandmother and her friends sewed 70 draw-string bags that students then filled with donated hygiene projects, such as soap, deodorant and other toiletries. There were also a few clothing items, including gloves, hats and socks, included in the Hope Toes, and half of the bags contained feminine hygiene products. Half of the bags were donated to the House of Blessing while half went to Stratford’s Connection Centre, an outreach program that helps the region’s homeless.

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“A lot of the time when people do drives, they’re specifically collecting food, and obviously food is always in need and there are many homeless people and just people in the community who are food insecure, but one thing that frequently gets overlooked is hygiene products,” Chung said.

While the club does not yet have any concrete plans for its next project, Chung is already thinking about what it might do next after upcoming exams. She said she’s hoping to connect with local businesses to possibly collect donations while also completing another tote drive, as well as working with grocery stores to get donations of products they are no longer able to sell.

Along with building these connections with the community, Chung said she hopes the club with build a sense of community within the school as members look to work with other Stratford District groups, like the equity class and the Grade 9 civics class.

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“I think one thing that’s happened, and this is from the pandemic as well. . . . Our school was only started in 2020, so it’s a pretty new, so (we’re) working to build a school community, and the hope is that will continue in future years. (So) the connection to the community, and then just kind of building community within the school, would be the main goals,” she said.

While she only has a few more months left at the school, Chung is not worried about someone else taking over the club once she graduates since there’s only one other Grade 12 student in the club.

“It’s not a big commitment. We don’t even meet weekly. We meet maybe every other week. We do a lot of messaging and making posters just on our own time, so it’s not a big commitment, and it’s also not that hard to run. It’s not very time consuming, but the effect of it for the community once we get the projects rolling is great,” she said.

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