Adopt-a-School
In the fall of 2011, the school year had barely begun at Admiral Seymour elementary when teacher Carrie Gelson, frustrated after a difficult day at work, wrote an impassioned open letter to Vancouver residents asking whether anyone cared that her inner-city students were coming to school with empty tummies and holes in their shoes. And then something wonderful happened. On the day that The Vancouver Sun published her letter, Gelson arrived at the East Vancouver school to discover that, “People had already dropped off thousands of dollars in cash . . . they literally drove into work that morning bringing donations.”

Clearly, Gelson had revealed a pressing need in our communities and, in keeping with our paper’s long-vested philanthropic commitments, we not only told her story from a journalistic perspective, but asked our readers — through our Vancouver Sun Children’s Fund charity — to help her students and others. And come through our generous readers did.

A decade later, The Vancouver Sun Children’s Fund’s Adopt-a-School project has raised more than $7.5 million in donations both large and small, from individuals and from companies alike, and not just money but clothing, school equipment and field trips.