Surrey’s Hazelgrove Elementary Raises $10k for Ukraine

Students at Surrey’s Hazelgrove Elementary raised nearly $10,000 for Ukraine during a skip-a-thon held at the school.

Organized by the Grade 7 leadership team, the fundraiser was a school-wide effort that saw students seek pledge donations. After all was said and done, the school ended up raising $9,715.60, more than triple the original goal of $3,000.

“This is our record-breaking year,” said Hazelgrove teacher and leadership coordinator Jill Payne. “We have made different amounts over the years, often around $3,000 to $4,000. Our record before this year was $7,400, but that was when we were a larger school before Katzie was formed. The Hazelgrove Community is so incredibly generous. I can't say enough how lucky I feel to work in this area with such a supportive community!”

According to Payne, the Grade 7 team decides which charitable causes to support each year and this year they unanimously chose Ukraine.

“The leadership team does a huge Five Days of Christmas food drive every year to support the local Cloverdale Christmas Hamper, so this year they wanted to expand to the world's current events that they were hearing about on the news each day,” said Payne.

Hazelgrove students were so dedicated to the cause that some went beyond asking family members for donations, with one having set up lemonade stand to raise additional money and another taking their pledge sheet to their parent’s workplace.

“When I told the student leaders how much we had earned they were speechless, they were in disbelief at how successful this fundraiser had been,” said Payne. “We had a meeting today and the students were so proud and excited to talk about the success of the skip-a-thon that we almost forgot to get around to picking a day for our year-end pizza party.”

Payne attributes the event’s success to the dedicated team of 16 students that make up the Grade 7 Leadership Committee.

“They really helped make our school feel like a community by planning fun spirit days like Stop and Dance Day, Crazy Hair Day and Backwards Day,” explained Payne. “The favourite event at Hazelgrove is always the skip-a-thon, though. This year will be a tough one to beat, but we will aim for the sky again next year!”