Home & School virtual meeting
Want to get involved in the Willingdon Community?
Have an idea for a school event or initiative?
Want to provide feedback on recent changes?
Join our next virtual Home & School meeting! Tuesday November 12, 7.30pm.
Meet your Home & School team
Willingdon’s Home & School Committee is there to make sure every Willingdon kid has a year to remember. We run events all year long to help parents get to know each other, have fun and keep our local community strong!
Please join us at the Junior Campus in the teachers lounge at 7pm on Wednesday, September 18th, to find out more about Home & School and meet the Executive team!
2023-2024 Final Co-Chair Message
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
2020-2021 Home and School Recap
2020-21 HOME & SCHOOL RECAP
THANK YOU WILLINGDON FAMILIES
Everything may have been very different this year, but we nonetheless had a great year thanks to you! Your generous contributions and amazing spirit have made this another successful Home & School year!
2020-2021 fundraising in numbers:
Fundraisers: School supplies sale, Mabel’s & Oliver’s Labels, Pizza night and more !
- $1579.23 raised in proceeds from the 2020 online school supplies sale (240 orders were place last year!)
- $1614.40 raised through the family pizza night, photo day, and Mabel’s & Oliver’s labels
- $3970 raised through FroYo (proceeds split between the Grad Committee and Home & School)
Virtual Scholastic Book Fair
- $3870.78 total sales
- With the scholastics rewards raised last year, over $5000 in scholastics rewards offered to the teachers in the form of classrooms supplies and books.
Holiday Baskets
- 12 overflowing boxes of food and goods to fill holiday gift baskets for local families
Grad Committee
- $10 645.09 raised through the generous donations from the grade 6 families, the Holiday Market, the spirit-wear sales, and chocolates sales.
Family Support Fund
- $7442.38 raised through direct donations, Tru Earth, Recette en Pot and the Spirit-wear campaign;
- Thoughtful Thursday food collections for the Willingdon Pantry initiative;
- Every family who requested support received sponsorship;
- Support includes:
- $5340 spent on school fees and lunch monitor fees;
- $5179.00 spent on groceries and grocery gift cards for families in need;
- $101 spent on FroYo;
- $1105.50 spent on weekly hot lunches from Mini Bistro;
- and so much more!
2020-2021 ACTIVITIES/EVENTS SUPPORTED BY H&S
- Year-round “Teacher and Staff Appreciation Week” (TSAW) activities: Thank you to Kim Tulloch & Ania Muller for coordinating such a special TSA year!
- Kindergarten welcome treats
- Snack bags for the Grade 5 Welcome to senior campus event in September
- Halloween festivities
- Kindergarten Holiday event
- Sponsored Mini Bistro lunches
- Themed days (Tropical Beach Day, Crazy Hat/Hair day)
- Art Therapy Program
- New bike racks for senior campus
- Virtual Magic Show
- Baked goods collection for Resilience Montreal
- Kindergarten orientation contributions
- Photo days
- Freezie Day
- Freezies for Kindergarten graduation day
- Donation of supplies for Autism Awareness month
- Donation of books for Black History Month
The generosity in the Willingdon Community is truly unmatched. We are so grateful for your continued support throughout the year, for all of our fundraising initiatives.
We would also like to take this opportunity to extend a heartfelt THANK YOU to the Willingdon administration, staff, and teachers. It is because of all of you that we had such a great year. You welcomed us into the school even during these difficult times and we thank you for the extra support you provided to each of the Home & School initiatives when our volunteers weren’t able to be there themselves.
A very big thank you goes out to all of our volunteers! From FroYo pick-ups and deliveries, to coordinating events, to the day to day volunteering, we appreciate you being there with us to make each of our events happen. THANK YOU ALL !
Cheers & Happy Summer!
Your Home & School Executive Members
Co-Chairs: Margo Stewart and Karen Negrete
Treasurer & Membership: Anna Calvert
Co-Communications Chairs: Andrea Archibald & Amélie Bélanger
Co-Secretaries: Ania Muller & Veronica Santaguida
Family Support Fund: Kristy Cuevas
Member-at-Large: Julie Trudel
