Photo Kim -Lim Gatehouse of Settlement Workers for Schools S.D. #41 – Burnaby.
The Pacific Parklands Foundation (PPF) recently partnered with YVR airport to expand its Bus Grant Program, which will allow more people the chance to explore parks in Metro Vancouver.
The program began in 2017 and has helped about 800 groups, mostly elementary school students, take field trips to various regional parks.
Harbinder Lalli, a teacher at Surrey’s Beaver Creek Elementary School and a recipient of the bus grant, says “adding a program fee to the transport cost makes taking my students on trips like this impossible. This is a trip that they will remember for many years."
Kim –Lim Gatehouse of Settlement Workers for Schools S.D. #41 – Burnaby.Recent immigrant and refugee families, a community centre from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, senior's groups and Ronald McDonald House have also benefited from the Bus Grant Program.
"We've helped a group from the Downtown Eastside and there were some women in the group that had never been in nature -- they were in tears," says PPF executive director Joe Hargitt.
Hargitt says with the support from YVR they want to increase the number of grants from 800 to 1,200 per year.
"All of us are wrapped up in technology and we're busy. Here in the Lower Mainland we tend to take our parks for granted because we have so much green space," he says."People need to appreciate and understand nature before they're going to want to protect it."
Interested parties can fill out an application online and if it is approved, PPF issues a $500 cheque towards the costs of booking a chartered bus or other form of transportation.
Kim –Lim Gatehouse of Settlement Workers for Schools S.D. #41 – Burnaby.
