Holiday Smile Cookie sales will raise money for McNaughton High upgrades
November 12, 2024, 3:23 pm
Nicole Taylor
McNaughton High School is gearing up for the Holiday Smile Cookie Campaign, which runs from November 18 to 24, in partnership with Tim Hortons. This initiative aims to raise funds for refreshing and updating various areas of the school.
Tegan Matichuk, chair of the Student Representative Council (SRC), said the funds raised will go to school renewal. “We are collaborating with Tim Hortons to raise funds to refresh, renew, and update some of the other areas of our school now that we’ve got the home economics lab rolling.”
The SRC plans to involve students in the decision-making process. “We plan to ask the students what are some of the things they’re most interested in seeing updated around the school,”Matichuk said.
Matichuk hopes this campaign will allow McNaughton to be able to add some of the colourful vibrance the school lobby has, to other areas of the school that are lacking colour.
“Some things that we have talked about refreshing include a Marquis painting on our new wall in the gym, the possibility of a new carpet in the drama room on the stairs was also discussed, because that’s been there since 1972. We talked about some updates of other programs in the school, possibly things in our shop, communications media equipment, forensic science, and environmental science.” Matichuk says there is also talk about updating the sound system in the gym.
“We are very lucky we have lots of electives for kids to take, and the more funds we have, the more we can refurbish and update supplies and equipment,” Matichuk added.
“We do plan to survey the students then maybe let the SRC compile it and see what’s most popular. We are hoping to do a student survey to find out what kinds of things the students would like to see. I know some of the students talked about inspirational sayings above the lockers. We’ve got 300 kids that we can pull ideas from and see what they’re interested in.”
Matichuk says they have already had people asking about sponsoring the Smile Cookie Campaign
“ We have had a few people already message me on Facebook or email to let me know that they want to sponsor a class.”
Matichuk says it doesn’t just have to be parents that sponsor the campaign.
“It could be anybody, businesses could buy for businesses, parents could buy for kids, kids could buy for community members … it has the potential to go a long way.”
Reflecting on past successes of the campaign, she mentioned, “We have heard the amazing things the campaign did raising funds for the elementary school playground,” and Taegan Matichuk hopes to reach their goal of $5,000 to $10,000, “I have heard there are campaigns that have been much more successful than that.” Matichuk said.
“Moosomin Tim Hortons has been one of the top fundraisers in Saskatchewan time and time again, so that would be fantastic if it was more, but even a few thousands dollars would go a long way.”
“I think when the home ec renovation was in the news and Tim Hortons saw that we were raising funds, it was kind of a combination, they had helped the MacLeod Elementary School and thought we would be another good recipient, so I do think it was a combination of different factors that led to the school being contacted. “
Matichuk says the SRC student committee has been working to promote the School’s collaboration with the Smile Cookie Campaign “We’ve published our first reel, SRC has made their first reel with some information about the campaign, when it starts, how to pre order, how to contact me.“
“Mostly we want the students to be engaged and sharing our posts and letting it build in the community, lots of staff, lots of students are already sharing campaign posts on social media.
We’ve got another post coming out next week that looks at the areas in our school that we would like to see updated.”
Matichuk says that the SRC will continue to promote the campaign as sponsors roll in. “If there are different businesses or individuals that donate, we’ll have them take pictures with the Marquis, which will hopefully increase their businesses’ social media presence by connecting it to the school,” said Matichuk. “Those networks get so much bigger when you include more and more diverse groups.”
As the Smile Cookie Campaign approaches, McNaughton High School encourages community support to enhance the educational environment for all students.
“Currently we are looking for individuals and businesses to sponsor the campaign and pre-order cookies, we are looking for volunteer groups or individuals who have time in their schedule to come and decorate cookies.” Matichuk says that companies can also create challenges to match what somebody else donated. “That could be really cool too,” she said.
Matichuk also shared a brief update of the school’s home economics lab, currently under renovation. “As with any renovation there’s been different things that hold up the process, we are pleased with the progress we are making and we are getting very excited, we’re getting close. Our commercial cooking students are very excited.” The Home Ec lab in planned to be completed by January 2025.”
Anyone who wants to pre-order cookies or is willing to volunteer to help decorate cookies can contact T.McGregorMatichuk@secpsd.ca
