Continuing Hawthorn’s tradition of reaching out to those on the peripheries, to use Pope Francis’ expression, our students have poured their care and creativity into making over 90 little Easter packages for the patrons of St. Basil’s Parish Out of the Cold programme.
Like the Easter Bunny himself, our Daycare and LS students leapt into early morning excitement as they gathered to draw, colour, cut, paste, and write unique, cheery greeting cards with their one-of-a-kind visions of Easter bunnies, chicks, eggs, and flowers.
The students were not given the names of the recipients of the cards, so one industrious young student solved that situation by writing Happy Easter Someone (!); another card wished Happy Ester (original spelling) 🙂 .
For their part, our US students got together during REAL class (Real Excellence and Attitude for Life) to add a touch of sweetness to their ‘little sisters’ ‘ cards by carefully and thoughtfully wrapping packages of Easter chocolates for each of the recipients.
The programme volunteers at St. Basil’s love reviewing Hawthorn’s cards. Indeed, the Out of the Cold Co-ordinator of Outreach and Hospitality, Hilda O’Connor, reached out to us this year to ask if we would consider creating cards once more.
In her messages she wrote,
Your students create such lovely cards and they really are appreciated by everyone. Our volunteers are very excited to look over your cards, as this task brings them great joy.
How wonderful! Our guests will be thrilled with the chocolates!
Thank you for the lovely photos of your capable students hard at work!
Thanks a million for the delightful cards. Our volunteers were thrilled with them, it really made their day!
Thank you to all of our students and faculty who participated in reminding the needy that they matter and that we remember them, especially in this Easter season of light, hope, and joy.
Thank you to Kieona and her team at Läderach, York Mills for the generous donation of chocolates for our packages!
And thank you to Fr. Morgan, Hilda and those in St. Basil’s Parish who work tirelessly to coordinate community efforts such as this to help bring people in, out of the cold.
