School Life

This year, Grade 9 and 10 students in over 100 schools across Canada learned the value of volunteerism and philanthropy through a very worthwhile project--the Youth Philanthropy Initiative (YPI). Established by the Toskan Foundation in 2002, the YPI provides students with the tools to assess community needs and makes grants to charitable, grassroots organizations.

In groups of two or three, students start the project by selecting a grassroots charity from within their community and thoroughly researching it. They visit their selected charity to learn about their mission and objectives, understand their history and review their financial position. In a 15-minute presentation to their class, students introduce the organization and make a case for funding this charity. One proposal is selected to represent each class in an intramural competition in front of an independent judging panel. A finalist team from each school is given $5,000 from the Toskan Foundation to grant to the charity they are championing.

Since 2003, St. Clement's School in Toronto has integrated this project into the Grade 9 Career Studies course curriculum. This year's winners at SCS were advocates for a charity called the Blake Boultbee Youth Outreach Service (BBYOS), an organization that provides a variety of services to high-risk youth and families in Blake Boultbee, a high-density, low-income area of east Toronto. The students' presentation included a video interview, and hypothetical scenarios of people in need of BBYOS' services. The students were thrilled to present the executive director of BBYOS with a cheque for $5,000 in a full-school assembly. The students' altruism does not end with the presentation; in this case--and many others--the girls plan to volunteer time with their charity in the future.

"I love working on the Toskan program because it really engages the students," says Martha Perry, who teaches a Career Studies class at St. Clement's School. "It is such a rewarding project for them and, as a teacher, it is wonderful to see students becoming more and more emotionally involved as the project progresses. Students not only research their charities but they also become aware of the importance of social service agencies in our community."

Research more about what students learn and experience at St. Clement's School