Soup for lunch at Skeena Jr. 50 cups provided each day JUST BEFORE lunch cach day at Skeena Junior Sec- ondary, counsellors Ed and Mary Papais set out 50 paper coffee cups on a round table just inside the doorway to a meeting room at the new school. They then rip open and empty out packets of dry soup and noodles into each of the cups while boiling water in _ several kettles.. The bell rings -and students quickly .crowd the hallway outside of the room. “Ten cents. That pays for just the cups,” Ed Papais tells the students as they grab up the offering from Skee- na’s informal hat lunch program. On, this’ day, the numberof students outstrips the sup- ply and. those at the end of the line fade away. “How ‘about 20 cents? Thirty? Forty?” asks one student. “Sorry,” says Ed Papais, “We'll see you next time. Hopefully, we'll have more.” - As is the case with any schoo! meal program, Ed and : Mary Papais aren’t sure how many Students show up for convenience as opposed to need. Bul the volume of demand has convinced them the nocdie mixture is the only Iunch possibility for a good number of the students, The Papais program began about three years ago after _ their son left home. .“We had all this food in the freezer, _.food only teenagers would eat, so we thought we would put it to good use,” says Mary Papais. “In their counselling jobs, it. was common for the cou- ple to run across students who were hungry. Mary began bringing in dry soup and noodle packets and the program soon took off. Fifty is the maximum soup cups offered each day by the Papaises, who finance the program out of their own pockets. Ed Papais views the lunch as just one step. He wants to set up a System where students would get soup for free in return for spending a few minutes cleaning: up litter around the school. A longer term goal is to allow stu- dents to build up credits to obtain CDs or other such items. “It would be both short term and long term motiva- tion,” he says. He and Mary both say they could use some help and wonder if retired people might be able to lend a hand during the lunch hour, They’ve also just received a $1,000 grant from the school district through the children and family ministry to help with expenses. SKEENA JUNIOR counsellors Ed and Mary Papais prepare dried soup and noode mixtures, served in paper cups, each lunch hour to 50 students. Students get fed thanks to grants The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, November 26, 2003 - A3 STUDENTS AT several local schools will have food thanks to recent grants made by the school district under a program called Learn- ing Includes Nutrition and Knowledge (LINK). The money comes from the provincial children and family ministry and is targeted for students considered at risk for any number of social and economic reasons. Altogether, $542,000 was provided for a variety of programs, including ones lor break- fasts and lunches, ‘and disbursed by a commit- lee scl up by school district official Dawn - Martin. That's substantially more than in prev- ious years because the provincial government has now changed the allocation formula to ’ recognize schools districts in areas of particu- lar economic and other hardships. “Absolutely outstanding,” said Martin of the grant applications received and of the work of the committee did in allocating moncy. “There are some very good positive things that are go- ing to happen.” In previous years, money went to provide classroom assistants, parenting skills work- shops snf. for junch programs at Clarence Michiel and E.T. Kenney schools. The new money means additional support “for breakfast ot lunch programs already under- “way that have received private, corporate or non-profit group donations. Kiti K’Shan, for example, is getting $4,000 for a new breakfast program which gol a start Sea this year thanks to a $200 donation from the local Harley Owners Group. Principal Tom Maclean estimated last week that as many as 30 students will be fed breakfast each morning. Caledonia Senior Secondary is getling just over $1,600 for a breakfast program at its PACES program which provides day care and education for teenage mothers. Its. breakfast program ‘for other: students.is getting $5,000, enough for the next seven months, As many as 200 students each morning are served toast and fruit, says principal Bruce Daniels, _ Skeena Junior Secondary counsellors Ed and Mary Papais are getting $1,000 (o help finance a lunch program they’ve been paying for out of their own puckets. TET hen News In Brief Earthquake money spent THE NORTHERN Health Authority is spending $500,000 from the health ministry to better prepare ils northwestern health facilities to withstand earthquakes, The money will go toward a variety of projects including stabilizing natural gas lines so they can withstand an earthquake, securing boilers and hot water systems and securing lights and electrical systems. Impravements to public buildings, including schools, to toughen them against earthquakes has been going on in other places, and is an issue par- ticularly on the lower mainland. Laundries toured COMPANIES INTERESTED in taking over laun- drics now run by the Northern Health Authority (NHA) have been touring facilities in the north- west. The hospital in Prince Rupert and the hospital in Kitimat have been visited in the first step of what promises to be a wholesale turnover of services to private companies. The NHA is moving to contracting out to save money after substantial numbers of its unionized employees who work in non-direct’ patient care areas rejected attempts to lower their wages and benefits. The Kitimat hospital's facility has been doing the laundry for Mills Memorial Hospital and Terra- ceview Lodge here for years. Not all union members rejected lower wages and benefits. Terraceview Lodge workers, members of the B.C. Government and Service Employees Union, did agree to lower wages and benefits but Hospital Employees’ Union members at Mills Memorial did not. Food, housekeeping and maintenance services are aiso likely to be contracted out by the health authority, Child expert visits CHILD CARE workers and educators will get a comprehensive look tamorrow at the overall health and readiness to learn of young children when they enter kindergarten. The information is based-on a comprehensive survey filled out by kindergarten teachers carlier this year and will be presented by Dr, Clyde Hertz- man of UBC, one of the continent’s leading ex- perts in early childhood learning. Hertzman will. also present what’s called a community asset map, an outline of the needs of children in the region and the services that are of- fered to them. The presentation is part of the pro- vincial government's Make Children. First Initia- tive, which provides money and resources for every region of the province. Hertzman will give two presentations, one in the morning and one in the afternoon-at the Best Westerii Tertace Inn. More-information-is- available by calling Sasa Loggin at The Family Place, 638- 1863. 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