The Irvings continues to brainwash the children the Irving way is the only route to go!!!

Pictures 224
Originally uploaded by Oldmaison.

But the public are not allowed to voice their views. The Senate have got to investigate the Irvings. The citizens have to go underground and start a new paper. This style of brainwashing have been going on all week!!!!




'Fueling The Future,' one school at a time
Sandra Davis
Published Saturday January 6th, 2007
Appeared on page C1

Editor's Note: A mentoring program where corporations partner with local schools to tackle poverty and illiteracy is gaining momentum in Saint John.

The only prize up for grabs is an opportunity to read a story aloud to the teacher.

So when Grade 1 and Grade 2 students at St. John the Baptist/King Edward School thrust their hands in the air yelling, "please pick me, please pick me," Tanya Horgan knows she is making a difference.

Planting the seed in students that reading is rewarding may be one of the biggest returns on investment that Horgan will ever receive.

"It was the light in their eyes when they were picked - they were just so proud," said Horgan, who volunteers at the South End school as a literacy mentor. She is one of about 70 Irving Oil employees and retirees who continue to give their time regularly.

Nothing is off-limits for the group that is, as Irving Oil puts it, "Fueling the Future".

They have a hand in everything from preparing and serving breakfast and dishing out lunches for the Chicken Noodle Club, to helping kids develop reading, math and science skills.

They help coach sports teams, conduct school-supply drives, buy hockey equipment, supply transportation to and from events and have started a Duke of Edinburgh/Outward Bound Program.

Sometimes, volunteers' involvement is more about being a friend and a positive role model than anything else.

The relationship between Irving Oil and the school is part of a program called Partners Assisting Local Schools (PALS), a six-year-old project that has corporations forming partnerships with Saint John schools.

St. John the Baptist/King Edward School serves the South End, an area where about 42 per cent of the population is poor, according to Statistics Canada's low-income cut-off threshold.

On this day, Horgan and more than 20 other volunteers from Irving Oil were out in full force scrambling 40 dozen eggs, frying ham and pancakes, buttering toast and making the rounds with syrup and jam, as they cooked nearly 300 breakfasts for students and staff. It may sound like a lot of work, but the school's fifth annual Holiday Breakfast is anything but.

As servers take their places at stainless steel chafers, Horgan and fellow volunteer Dawn Carr break into an impromptu holiday jig, just about the same time when eight hockey players for the Saint John Sea Dogs arrive to make sure the milk and juice cups are kept filled. As they circulate the long tables filled with steaming plates, their mascot, Splash, introduces himself - with hugs to the children.

Kindergarten students Jonathan Bernard, Nick Torrie and Cassidy Theriault are all smiles when Splash greets them, just as the older students finish up their meal and pick up the treat bags that Irving Oil has provided.

"Our school is the best," declares Grade 8 student Terence Curnew as he prepares to head to class.

On average, Irving Oil employees each volunteer about an hour a week. The time they spend with the students has proven to be invaluable, says Cynthia Dupere, the teacher who co-ordinates the partnership at the school's end of things.

"It gives the kids an opportunity to take part in things," she says. "They get to go on field trips and sometimes it's reading with them one-on-one or working in small groups."

The volunteers' influence is already trickling down the school's Leadership Club. Two additional Irving Oil volunteers make a big difference to parent/facilitator Mary Doiron, she said.

"We have a better chance of doing some of the activities and events because we have the help of the volunteers," she said.

Before Irving Oil's involvement four years ago, the Kindergarten to Grade 8 school relied on a small group of parents in the Home and School Association to help out with extra-curricular events. They numbered less than 10, said principal Mike McCaustlin.

"They were pretty active but they were the same small group year in and year out it seemed," he said.

Since Irving Oil came on board, students are able to take part in things they couldn't before. Even transportation was an issue.

In fact, on the same day as the Holiday Breakfast, the Grade 4s and 5s went to a sports jamboree at M. Gerald Teed School. Without the help of the volunteers, they probably would not have been able to attend, he said.

But there are also benefits that aren't as easy to measure.

"I think a lot of it is intrinsic, as far as the adults spending quality time with the kids," said McCaustlin.

"I hear them. The volunteers tell me that, when the summer comes, they're anxious to meet with the kids again in the fall and the kids have said the same thing."

Irving Oil staff became involved because they realize the importance of helping children living in "economically challenged areas" do well in school, said company spokeswoman Lisa Savidant.

If they graduate and become productive citizens, it follows that the cycle of poverty many are caught up in will end, she says.