LDSS students thrive with IB program book drive

By Mark Ribble

LEAMINGTON — Students enrolled in the International Baccalaureate (IB) program at Leamington District Secondary School have been busy with projects even with the ongoing COVID pandemic.

The IB program requires students to deal with global issues and have a broader look at the world through the three main strands — creativity, activity and service. These are mandatory core components of the IB program, which is in many high schools across Ontario.

They are required to develop a project reflecting these strands before graduation. The IB program begins with a ‘pre-IB’ program in Grades 9 and 10, and then goes into the full program in Grades 11 and 12.

Lily Stasko is one of the students who has excelled with her project, which was a collaborative effort between herself, Madison Selwood and Jonathan Bueckert. The trio began their project last spring, just before the onset of the COVID pandemic.

“We decided to do a book drive and involve Mount Carmel-Blytheswood (MCB) Public School as well,” said Lily.

They worked with teachers and came up with advertising ideas, creating posters that would entice the MCB students to donate gently used books to their cause.

“We had a goal of 300 books last March,” she said. “We were shooting for one book per student.”

Madison Selwood, Jonathan Bueckert and Lily Stasko with the books collected for their book drive in collaboration with Mount Carmel-Blytheswood Public School. The trio spearheaded a book drive that yielded 3,350 books.

Submitted photo

Instead, the students at Mount Carmel-Blytheswood gathered up 3,350 books in one week for their book drive, taking Lily and her partners completely by surprise.

“We were shocked, but very happy,” she said.

Plans were in place at that time to donate the books to several local organizations, but the COVID lockdown put a damper on those plans.

Instead, the books went to The Toy Box Daycare Centres in Leamington and Windsor, the LDSS ESL classes and the Free Little Libraries throughout the area.

Although it was expected to be a children’s book drive, they received several adult or mature books, which were donated to Habitat for Humanity and Thrift on Mill.

Lily is grateful to her teachers, and the entire MCB community for their help in pulling this together.

“Thanks to principal Kim Gould, the students and teachers at MCB, we are overwhelmed and overjoyed,” she said.

In the process, they were able to accomplish what they started out to do, and along the way, learned a whole lot about marketing and helping with low literacy rates by supplying much-needed reading material.

“We were able to improve our communication skills, public speaking skills and able to provide books to anyone who needed them,” she said.