Community comes together
Christmas dinner served to 230 students from Tompkins school
A community effort provided children at the local school with an early Christmas dinner.
The approximately 230 students at Tompkins Memorial Elementary School were recently treated to turkey and all the trimmings at the Reserve Mines Seniors and Pensioners Club.
“I was so impressed, it was the first year for the Christmas dinner with the two schools combined,” said Nicole Musial, president of the Tompkins Home and School Association. Macdonald school in Dominion was closed and the students moved to Tompkins in September 2016.
“I was blown away by the support, I was almost in tears. There are quite a few families (with students) at our school that don’t have very much,” she said. “This Christmas dinner for a lot of these children may be the only one that they get. That’s why we push hard at fundraising to make this happen because we want to make sure every child gets a Christmas dinner.”
However Musial said the challenge was the increase in numbers at the school. (A dinner wasn’t held last year because the teachers were involved in a contract dispute.)
Musial said the dinner cost about $1,500 and numerous groups and organizations helped make it possible including the Dominion Hawks Club, Royal Canadian Legion branch 78 in Dominion, Dominion and Reserve Mines credit unions, Spar Mac Holdings Ltd., Shamrock Club, Bridgeport CWL, Hickey and Lynk, Visions of Vision and the Dominion Pharmasave.
Musial said then there’s the Reserve Mines Seniors and Pensioners Club.
“They gave three days of their time to prepare (the dinner). They cooked 11 turkeys.”
As well Musial said every student received an item of school clothing.
“We fundraised — and the school helped as well — to purchase a Tompkins T-shirt for every child so when they have spirit days and things like that every child has something to wear.”
Musial said the home and school raised $600 for the shirts and the school contributed the other half.
Part of the school’s contribution came from the late Donna Smith, a staff member who died this year.
“When she passed away she asked for all donations to be left in her memory to the school. That played a big part in us being able to get these T-shirts for the kids.”
The community spirit doesn’t stop with Christmas dinner.
The Hawks Club is providing several free skating sessions for the students.
“They told the (Dominion) rink to send them the bill so all our kids could go staking and we wouldn’t have to charge them.”
Cape Breton-Victoria Regional School Board member Gary Fraser said it was great to see the community come together to make Christmas dinner a success.
“The amount of involvement shows the caring this school community has for the children. There were smiles on every child’s face when served their turkey dinner,” he said. “I heard so many thank-yous … they were so well behaved.