Students at Camosun College are planning a Valentine’s Day candy-gram service that will not only raise the spirits of that special someone on campus, but also raise awareness and funds for an orphanage in Tanzania, Africa.
Second-year sociology students Carly Charlebois, Amanda Roberts, and Ashley Pollari are undertaking the candy-gram service for a service-learning project in their class.
Two of the students are also on college’s African Awareness Committee and connected with a charity called The Small Things in Tanzania through fellow student Kristina Alexander, who sits on the charity’s board of directors.
“We’ve all been to Africa and having that personal connection to Africa was important and a strong basis for this project,” says Charlebois, who adds that two of the students are planning to visit the orphanage this summer. “A lot of organizations just throw money at people and they don’t know what people really want, so having Kristina here at Camosun is such an amazing connection to the orphanage.”
The candy-grams are a fundraising and awareness idea that the students came up with along with their professor at Camosun, Francis Abu-Febiri.
“Francis really embraces innovative and creative fundraising ideas, and everyone does things like bottle drives and this raises more awareness,” says Charlebois. “I’m not for the commercialization of Valentine’s Day, but if we use this to get a nice little message out there, or to say hello to someone, while raising awareness, I think that’s awesome.”
The candy-grams can be ordered in the Fisher Foyer at the Lansdowne campus on February 12 and 13 between 9 am and 5 pm. The recipients will get a call from organizers on Valentine’s Day and the candy-grams, consisting of a card and fair-trade chocolate, can be picked up in the Fisher courtyard, again between 9 am and 5 pm.
All of the profits from the candy-grams service will go toward The Small Things, which runs a non-profit orphanage called Nkoranga in Tanzania. Specifically, the funds will put towards the building of a children’s village and operation of a HIV health care facility at the orphanage.
Organizers hope the service will also help to raise awareness about the importance of choosing fair-trade products.
“We’re supporting an African village,” says Charlebois, “and the issues surrounding fair trade and slave labour are a big part of this, too.”
We at The Small Things are so grateful to Camosun students for all their hard work! Thank you to everyone who contributes, and special thanks to Kristina and her fellow students. If you want to find out more about us, check out http://www.thesmallthings.org