BURST
When it comes to the number of languages, is there a school that can best the 84 native tongues spoken by students attending Surrey’s Guildford Park Secondary?
“It’s so incredible for someone like me who has been in Surrey for 31 years to be in a building as diverse as this,” said principal Marti Player.
Her staff among them speak 27 different languages, which in itself seems remarkable, but still leaves a deficit of 57 for which Google Translate is likely called into action.
However, such diversity brings more than just issues of language for the school to handle. With such a high immigrant and refugee population in the school’s catchment area, many families struggling with their new life in Canada turn to the school for help.
They need assistance with basic needs such as food to get them through the week, and warm clothes for their children to get them through the winter.
“Many come from other countries and experience different areas of struggle and yet we are surrounded by a vibrant and determined student body that’s very hard working.”
Hard working or not, Player has lost the ability to use government funds to help those students in need of extra food or clothing after the province cancelled its $20 million student and family affordability fund this year, which was worth about $3.1 million to Surrey schools.
“It was a regular occurrence for families to come in and ask for help with food. We had affordability funds so were able to give them gift cards to grocery stores and that was a huge help for our community. Now it’s gone,” she explained.
Last year, The Vancouver Sun’s Adopt-A-School campaign sent Surrey $183,080 in emergency funds to help schools with their needs, including Guildford Park.
”I think that’s a big part of what we will use The Vancouver Sun’s fund for (this year) because our families desperately need it,” Player said.
The need for such help is seen daily when students arrive disabled by hunger.
“Today we had a student in our medical room. She was feeling light-headed and not feeling well. This is common and our first aid checks ‘Have you eaten today?’ ‘No’. So we have to get them food and give them 15 minutes to digest it and feel better.
“We probably have a student like that every day.”
Adopt-A-School also helps provide a breakfast program at the school along with the Surrey firefighters who feed about 100 children daily, said Player.
“A lot of our families are living in homes with multiple children in one or two bedrooms so they need the help because food is expensive. So it’s been a hard hit with the loss of the affordability fund, and the cost of food keeps going up.”
She will also need Adopt-A-School’s help to provide some students with winter coats and footwear.
“The clothing piece from The Vancouver Sun is important because we spend a lot on coats and shoes. People from other countries are not used to how cold it gets, so we want to make sure they all have coats for winter.”
The school needs $5,000 from Adopt-A-School to help families with food and clothes.
A Grade 12 student whose family has received help from Adopt-A-School said one particular use of this funding had brought her healing.
She asked not to be identified, but her family arrived here in 2020 from Pakistan when she was 12 and suffering from an identity crisis.
They had originally left their troubled home in Afghanistan for Pakistan, but she found school there difficult.
“I had no friends because people there don’t like Afghans. It was shocking because it drifted me away from my identity … so I no longer told people I was an Afghan because I would have no friends.”
In Canada, that struggle for who she was continued, but then she found the Poetry Club in Guildford Park and was prompted to write a poem on the theme — I Am From.
There was an opportunity to present her poem when five students from the poetry club were offered the chance to attend a Vancouver poetry festival.
But none had the money to go.
“The Vancouver Sun funded it so we were able to go and I presented my poem there. It was really healing for me to let it all out and let people hear it.”
Here are some excerpts:
“They ask me where I am from
As if home were just a postal code
As if home were just an airplane ride away
But the truth is, I am from a place that doesn’t exist on maps.
Sometimes I wonder if I am just a mismatched collection of all the places I have been
If I am just a mixture of accents, Of faded memories
That no one else understands.
I carry bits of Afghanistan in my heart
The way my dad longs for it
The way his grief sits in silence that’s unbearably loud
But I never walked through those alleys
Never knew about the mountains he misses.
Then comes Canada
With its cold, crisp air
That can be harsh sometimes
But at least it’s a place to breathe
It’s here I learned to write my full name again
Yet no one pronounces it right …”
No administration fees are deducted from donations to Adopt-A-School. All donations will be directed to schools.
How to donate
1. ONLINE: Donate online with a credit card at www.vansunkidsfund.ca
2. PHONE: To pay by credit card, call 604-813-8673.