The Port Dalhousie community has two amazing schools that support education of our local children. St. Ann’s School represents the Niagara Catholic School Board and Gracefield Public School represents the District School Board of Niagara.
Both schools are smaller than average, and Gracefield is very small, housing only ~135 students from Kindergarten to Grade 8.
The Port Dalhousie Lions Club reached out to both schools to understand better how we might be able to help out financially for some of the school’s biggest needs.
At Gracefield, the parents have started a healthy snack program and they are looking to continue that great work as well as potentially add hot meals for children who go regularly go hungry. Though their snack program, they are able to ensure that local children who may suffer from food insecurity at home are able to have a healthy snack at school, which has been proven to have a significant impact on learning.
At St. Ann’s school, the focus of need was more around technology which enables the teachers to better engage the students and which has shown remarkable improvements in the EQAO results at the school. Through the introduction of new learning programs, St. Ann’s has been able to significantly improve the literacy and math skills of their students, but they require additional technology supports to continue to make this happen.
The Port Dalhousie Lions Club was thrilled to be able to learn about these important programs, and we have made donations of $2,000 each to both St. Ann’s and Gracefield School to help them continue the important work they highlighted for us!
We got this awesome video from the Gracefield kids thanking us for our donation!