A Sarnia high school is spreading some holiday cheer this Christmas season through its annual anti-bullying campaign.
Students at Great Lakes Secondary hosted the sixth annual Anti-Bullying Week earlier this month, an initiative started by Great Lakes teacher Bradon Burnham at the former SCITS location.
The campaign sees students in Burnham's leadership class design and sells anti-bullying t-shirts to fellow students, staff, other schools, and outside organizations for $15 per shirt.
Grade 11 student Makayla Riley said all the money raised goes towards a good cause.
"It goes towards a family or two around the holidays, and what we do is go and buy a bunch of food and gifts, and just spoil the families."
Grade 12 student Samantha Wiltschut said some of the money also goes towards the Canadian Mental Health Association.
Wiltschut said it's an important campaign to have year after year.
"It's a big thing in high school that a lot of students go through, so I think it's really important to spread awareness about and kind of just stand together to be against bullying because it's something that affects high school for a lot of people."
Fellow Grade 12 student Taylor Robinson said this is the first year he's been involved with the campaign. He's encouraging returning Great Lakes students to get involved next school year.
"I've always bought a shirt, like every year I've been in the school, I've bought a shirt, but now that I get to be one of those kids that gets to make the shirt, it's been pretty cool," said Robinson. "So we'll sell anti-bullying shirts, the class will come up together with a design and then come together to sell the shirts and raise money for families in need over the holidays, and we just kind of go to town with all of the money we've raised."
Burnham said his leadership class organized a number of anti-bullying activities throughout the week, including a school BBQ to raise money towards the initiative.
Burnham said it's a great leadership experience that the textbook can't teach.
"I think it's super impactful just to let these guys see and give them a first-hand experience giving back to the community, I find it's super gratifying for the students because they don't get a lot of opportunities to find a family that's actually struggling at Christmas, and we come in and give them mountain of gifts and we get to see these looks on kids' faces and the parents that may not be able to afford it, and my guys actually get way more out of it than the families do."
Burnham said the campaign has grown over the years, from selling 200 shirts in 2014 to 500 shirts in 2019.
He said going forward, they may have to order a few more shirts to keep up with demand.
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