High schools students are looking to help the community in different ways.
In about 24 hours, Specialist High Skills Major students at O’Gorman High were tasked with coming up with a dragons den style presentation to that can help some of the needs in the community. The school says this is part of the program’s annual Innovation Creativity Entrepreneurship Challenge. Grade 11 and 12 construction students, as well as health and wellness students, had different challenges given to them after hearing from community partners including the Mayor and the Salvation Army on what kind of services are needed in Timmins.
The Health and Wellness students were given the task to come up with an idea that could increase awareness of the available services in Timmins for people in need. Challenge winner Hailey Vaillancourt says her group came up with the idea of caring covers which are blankets that have homeless shelters and service information printed on them.
Vaillancourt says the blanket can also be used as a pillow, to dry off or for shelter. This idea was up against other innovative ideas like hydration stations, community bulletin boards and supportive information events.
Construction students were tasked with coming up with a design to redo the drop off centre at the Salvation Army to maximize the space. Winner Sean Courville says hos group came up with the idea to add shelves that are adjustable for items depending on the time of year and a table that can fold into a shelf.
Teacher Doug Basso says all the ideas were amazing and it was hard to choose a winner. Basso says sometimes we underestimate how smart and creative our youth are. He says the construction students will now go to the Salvation Army to take measurements to build their idea. He adds that he will be helping the health and wellness students look into how the caring covers can be made and distributed.