Students embrace the spirit of Week Without Walls

Midway through the Week Without Walls, Trinity College School students and staff are reporting that this service learning initiative is having a profound effect on their lives.

Week Without Walls takes service learning outside the classroom with Senior School students and staff heading to nearly 50 different volunteer sites each afternoon from December 13th to 15th. On Friday, December 16th, everyone will convene here at the School to discuss the impact of their experiences.

Students and staff were eager to head out to their Week Without Walls sites on Tuesday afternoon and to begin giving back to local organizations in Northumberland County, Durham Region, Belleville, Peterborough and Toronto. “We are so proud of the energy and enthusiasm put into this year’s Week Without Walls thus far,” says Kim Vojnov, director of service learning at TCS. “Our students really have embraced the importance of giving to others, especially during this special time of year. Many students came back from their first day of service with great examples of why this week matters.” Some feedback from Tuesday included:

• Access Community Services clients had an absolute blast with our students. Every face was lit up as they left the hockey game at the Peter Campbell Memorial Rink.
• The PrimRose Donkey Sanctuary gang had fun learning how to deal with some sassy donkeys!
• The Valleys 2000 gang successfully powered through planting over 30 trees on Tuesday, and is working on cleaning up two important creek valleys in the region.
• The Salvation Army (Peterborough) group came back glowing from the experience. Many of the students were able to actually go Christmas shopping for families in need.
• Many of the TCS students at Burnham Public School felt they had already made great connections with students at this school; they could not wait to continue working with them on Wednesday and Thursday.
• The Habitat for Humanity group working on the house build in Peterborough learned about dry walling and applying putty. On Wednesday they were diving into even more work.

You can read also read the insights of our students and staff – and join in the conversation – on the TCS Twitter (www.twitter.com/TCSBears) and Facebook (www.facebook.com/TCSBears) sites.

We have also been hearing from our students and staff in Ecuador, working with Me To We on a high school build in San Miguel. You can follow their progress on the TCS Web site (www.tcs.on.ca/ecuador) and also read blog posts from Grade 12 student Katie Stevenson on the Our Kids Web site (click here and click here). We can’t wait to hear first-hand about their adventures when they return to Canada on December 17th.

Update!

Enjoy videos and photo galleries from throughour the third annual Week Without Walls, including the annual Ecuador school build trip. Click on the links below:

Photo Gallery 1

Photo Gallery 2

Photo Gallery 3

Week Without Walls Video (selected sites)

Habitat for Humanity: Video 1, Video 2, Video 3

Ecuador: Photo Gallery

Ecuador: Video