(Top): Vancouver College students serving meals at St. Luke’s Parish. (Middle): Senior students at Vancouver College participate in the Kairos Blanket Exercise to learn about connections between indigenous and non-indigenous groups. (Bottom): Melaney Gleason-Lyall joins Vancouver College students for the Kairos Blanket Exercise.
The Vancouver College Brownsville Faith in Action team visited St. Luke's Parish at Maple Ridge, British Columbia, prepared meals for migrant farmer workers, and ate dinner with migrant farm workers on Sunday, Sept 25. Despite the language barriers, the team got the opportunity to learn about migrant working conditions at the farms and connected with them by attending a Spanish mass together.
Vancouver College Senior School students participated in the Kairos Blanket Exercise to get a multi-sensory learning experience about the historical and contemporary relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in the land we now know as Canada.
The exercise was engaging on emotional and intellectual levels, allowing our boys to learn, empathize, and understand in the hope of leading us to Truth and Reconciliation.
Vancouver College has been slowly shifting the focus from service to Advocacy and this year, the Senior School students are embarking on the new Christian Service Advocacy Project. It is a big shift for students to think about how their “on the ground” volunteer work is more closely aligned with the Essential Elements and connected to one or more of the U.N. 2030 Sustainable development goals, but we are looking forward to seeing the first generation of Advocacy Projects and campaigns during our Faith in Action week in March.