Water works
Students at Churchill secondary school, who call themselves Youth4Tap, are replacing some of the school's old water fountains with new state-of-the-art refillable water stations.
The new stations, which are hooked into the school's water line, are designed to make it easier to refill reusable water bottles, which don't fit under most traditional water fountains. Due to the difficulty, some students prefer to buy water out of the school's vending machine. Churchill's vending contract recently expired and under the new contract Churchill won't be selling bottled water. "It's the whole notion of water is free. Vancouver has world-quality water and why are we charging our kids for something that is a basic human right," explained Churchill vice principal Leann Buteau.
Each water station, which features a spout to drink from and a spout with which to refill bottles, costs $3,710, including labour for installation.
The teenagers raised $1,100 through a youth funding grant from the Vancouver Foundation to help pay for two new water stations and received some money from their school's parent group. In total, they collected about $4,000, which will be matched by the school. Youth4Tap, which is led by students Tesicca Truong and Alan Chen, is selling reusable water bottles to the student body as a fundraiser. Truong is particularly enthusiastic about the initiative. "There's a [counter] at the top of the station and every time you refill 500 millilitres of water, it counts as one plastic bottle saved from the landfill. So it counts how much the school is saving [from the landfill] together," explained the 18-yearold Grade 12 student. "It's a nice incentive for students. It makes them feel good and it shows what impact we have."
The Youth4Tap group hopes to raise enough money to install a third water station by year's end. The campaign to install refillable water bottles isn't limited to Churchill. Byng, Killarney, Magee, Hamber and Van Tech students have expressed interest in getting their own water stations set up, according to Truong. "We're trying to spread the Youth4Tap movement in Vancouver," she said.
SCHOOL WORK
I earlier wrote about the construction of the Sexsmith elementary replacement school, and the school district's plans to find a group or organization to seismically upgrade and lease the 1913 heritage school building and original schoolhouse from 1912.
But Sexsmith isn't the only city school undergoing work. Kitchener elementary, at 4055 Blenheim St., is getting a replacement school. The new building will be a hybrid of old and new-the 1914 heritage school building is being retained and relocated to the corner of King Edward and Collingwood, according to the VSB. Most of the concrete structure is completed on the new school. Construction is on schedule, with a projected opening date in the fall of 2012.
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