Mar 24, 2025 | event, recap
Flippin’ amazing! A huge THANK YOU to the incredible Willingdon community for coming out to our Pancake Breakfast and making it such a sweet success! Your support (and appetite!) made for a fantastic morning filled with syrupy smiles and warm memories.
A special shoutout to Ms. Eugenia and Ms. Doubt for joining us—we loved having you there! And of course, a massive thank you to our amazing volunteers who helped make it all happen. We couldn’t have done it without you!
Until next time—keep stacking up the fun!
Jan 14, 2025 | event, recap
The Kindergarten holiday breakfast was a delightful morning filled with festive cheer. Children and their teachers gathered to enjoy a spread of scones, fruit, and hot cocoa, all while sharing in the excitement of the season. After breakfast, the little ones engaged in crafting activities. The highlight of the morning was a joyful sing-along. And afterwards the celebration continued in the library, where the children gathered for a story read by the Junior Campus vice-Principal. It was a joyful, memorable event that brought the whole pre-K and Kindergarten classes together in the spirit of the season.
Nov 10, 2024 | event, recap
Thank you to everyone who brought in their pumpkin for Halloween, we had a record 57 entries!
Congratulations to our winners
A small prize will be awarded in the next week.
Joint 2nd: number 10
Maddy
Joint 2nd: number 39
Nicholas
Nov 5, 2024 | recap
taken from the EMSB press release
Voters within the territory of the English Montreal School Board have cast their ballots for the choice of chair and commissioner in 10 wards. There was an approximate 22 percent voter turnout. Joe Ortona was re-elected chair while his candidates swept all 10 seats.
Here are the results:
Chair:
Katherine Korakakis 4,674
Joe Ortona 13,289
Ward 5 – Notre-Dame-de-Grâce
Joseph Lalla 853
Sharon Nelson 1,132
Oct 22, 2024 | event, recap
After a slow start, we reached the top of the trackers, which is amazing. The lunchtime dance parties are being organized!!!
We had triple the amount of donations come in Friday than the previous 4 days together, for a total of 586 items.
Junior Campus – as tall as Mr Dave
Senior Campus – as tall as Mrs Vivien
Previous Food Drive Total
Oct 15, 2024 | event, fundraiser, recap
A Message From Your Co-Chairs:
Hello Willingdon Families!
A big THANK-YOU to our Pizza Day volunteers for making this year’s first pizza day a great success using our new vendor Pizza Welat and a new distribution system – both appreciated by students and volunteers alike! General feedback we received from the students is that Pizza Welat is much tastier (and less spicy) and the bingo stamp was a little thrill.
We have a few things to tweak to knock next pizza day out of the park, but most importantly, Kristy and I appreciated the flexibility and general awesomeness of our parent volunteers. In no particular order: Kristin Taylor, Pam Bernstein, Andrea Taylor, Leetal Cuperman, Ghazel, Lisa Robicheau, Sophia Otoni, Amanda Scullion, Angela Yu, Amelia Pang, Alison N, Sandy Sidhu, Carolyn Bouchard, Margo Stewart, Anna Calvert, Roxanne Ross.
As we did last year, we will re-open the Pizza and Froyo ordering in January for families still wishing to participate!
– Daniela & Kristy
Sep 12, 2024 | event, recap
Highlights from the Annual Willingdon Corn Roast – September 11, 2024
We couldn’t have buttered ourselves up with better weather for this year’s Corn Roast! With the help of a small but ear-nest army of volunteers, (who we cannot thank enough) we shucked, boiled, and served a corn-tastic 1,000 ears of corn. Families enjoyed a fun-filled evening with classic games like the Corn-Sack races and a tug-of-war that really pulled the crowd in, while parents got the chance to meet new faces and reconnect with old friends.
A special thank you goes out to:
- Kristin & Jay
- Nicholas
- Nicolina
- Robin
- Heidi
- Shaun
- Sophia
- Nadine
- Ken and Violet
- Caretaker Richard
It’s events like these that truly kernel our community spirit and create lasting memories for our kids. Keep your eyes peeled for more community-building events — after all, it takes all of us to make these moments a-maize-ing!
We’re delighted to have Dave Handelman, a Willingdon parent, capture our memories. During school events that Home and School supports, such as Halloween, Dave photographs children whose parents signed media release form. For Home and School events outside regular school hours, Dave freely photographs. However, if you would like to have a photo of your child/family removed from the website, please contact Home and School and we’ll be happy to oblige.
Photos from Corn Roast 2024
(click photo to see slideshow)
Photos from Corn Roast 2023
(click photo to see slideshow)
Jun 18, 2024 | recap
Looking back, what a busy year it has been! Kristy came to the co-chair role as an old hat and Daniela as…. a new hat. It was instant chemistry though, right from Corn Roast planning. Our shared appetite for silly shenanigans coalesced quickly to kick Corn Roast up a notch with some competitive vintage games. And for the rest of the year, we kept our focus on what Willingdon needed most post-Covid … the return of that old school in-person vibe.
Let’s look back. In somewhat chronological order, Home and School’s activities included (drum roll please)……
1 “Welcome Back Willingdon Families!” Corn Roast
1 QHFSA Membership Drive (keeping us an honest Association member)
1 Annual Pizza Campaign*
1 Annual Froyo Campaign*
1 Crazy Halloween Extravaganza
3 Scholastic Book Fairs (rewards go to teachers to purchase classroom tools and supplies)
1 Carolyn’s Toy Drive (benefiting local families for Christmas)
FSF Holiday Baskets
2 Food Drives (benefiting four different local organizations)
1 Teacher and Staff Appreciation Week and additional gestures throughout the year
1 Family Pancake Breakfast
1 Willingdon Logo Design Campaign
1 Spiritwear Campaign*
1 Student Film Festival
1 Grand Finale Bash (Unprecedented!)*
Decorating for Winter and Spring Concerts and Kindergarten Graduation
Interior Beautification Projects in both buildings
Volunteering for photo days, vaccination days and open houses
Countless hilarious Weekly Newsletters!
(events marked with * raise funds for Home & School to run all the other activities)
And last but not least, Grade 6 Grad Committee with several dedicated fundraisers. We wish all our graduates a sincere “Woot! Woot! Congratulations!”
We are thankful to have our parent photographer this year who captured many of our memorable events, and we are thankful for our numerous parent volunteers – many hands do indeed make light work. Some of you do some serious heavy lifting and our hats are off to you. You are rockstars!
We can not close out this year without a huge shout-out to our dedicated Scholastic Book Fair Team, Michelle, Sharon, Eva, Megan (and their team of volunteers). It is a huge undertaking and requires coordination with Scholastic, the school administration and a team of volunteers and not only did you do it once and then twice but for the first time ever, THRICE! Thank you, thank you, thank you!
We applaud our teachers, staff and administration for the heavy lifting you do day in and day out. We wish our dear Miss Carmen and Mr. McKelvie a warm and heartfelt adieu and best wishes for your new adventures. We will see you around, of that, we are sure. And lastly, thank you to our Executive Committee – Andrea, Veronica, Adam, Margo, and Claudia. Your dedication is appreciated. You have been generous with your time and the school is better for it.
As the school year winds down, we have one final responsibility to launch the school supplies’ campaign. Keep an eye out for a separate communication this week with scheduled reminders in the coming three weeks.
Wishing everyone in our amazing community a safe, happy, adventure-filled summer!
Kristy and Daniela
Your Co-chairs, a.k.a. Thing 1 and Thing 2
Jun 12, 2024 | event, recap
Unprecedented.
That’s the word that keeps coming to mind when we think back to Friday night’s Grand Finale. Unprecedented turnout despite the rain. Unprecedented resilience from our volunteers. Unprecedented patience from our parents as we adapted to the weather. And unprecedented funds raised setting us up for a good start in the new school year. We’ll share more details on that front at the Annual General Meeting planned for June 26 online. You’re welcome to attend.
And as we scrambled, pivoted and even despaired (ahem, Daniela), we were reassured that all was not lost by the waves of laughter from the dunk tank crowd, the energy of the kids messing around, the fact that running out of food meant people were eating and the palpable happiness in the air. And the rainbows! What a fortuitous sign. We were stubbornly optimistic when we made the call earlier in the afternoon to push ahead. We said “either way, it’s going to be memorable” and that it was.
A genuine heartfelt thank you to all our volunteers. You went above and beyond, sticking it out in the downpour and staying on at your posts past your committed time. Thank you to our parents for showing up and taking part – rain be d$#**ed. And thank you to Carmen, Peter, Eugenia, Rosie, and Elena for your enthusiastic support pre, during and post event. Friday was a testament to Willingdon’s community and we couldn’t be prouder.
