During the school year of 2020-2021 I was in a leadership class and we were trying to brainstorm ideas to welcome the incoming grade 8s. Our annual in-person event that we normally do for them was cancelled due to the pandemic so we wanted to do something small in replace of the in-person event. I thought of making small welcome kits for the incoming grade 8s and delivering them to the feeder schools of J.N Burnett. The welcome kits would include pre-packaged treats and a personal note for each student. My friend told me about Neighbourhood Small Grants and so I decided to apply for a grant. When I applied for the grant, it was during April however, when I received the money for the grant it was during May and my leadership class ended. I no longer had my classmates to help me continue with this project so I decided to hold off on the welcome kits and do it during the following school year in September. As September rolled around, I had a hard time finding students to help me with this project since I was no longer in a class with other students to help me. I decided to try working on it myself. I went to Costco and Miniso and bought all the supplies however after looking at the huge pile of supplies I had, I realized I could not make 178 goodie bags by myself. I decided to ask two of my friends to help me put all of the welcome kits together. We spent two days packaging and writing small personal notes to each of the grade 8s! On Thursday September 23rd, my two friends and I delivered the welcome kits to each of the grade 8s during class. When we handed everything out we wore plastic gloves to make sure we were being COVID safe. Most of the grade 8s were very surprised and looked very happy to receive a little goody bag full of pre-packaged treats. After delivering all the packages, it felt good to see the smiles on their faces and to know that they had something small to feel a little more welcomed to the school. After school, I saw many of the grade 8s walking around with their welcome kits and reading the notes and eating the treats. Overall this was a very enjoyable project to work on and though there were some obstacles in planning the welcome kits, I was able to work around that and created an end product that added some joy into their day.
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