Southwestern Ontario initiative connects high schools with local companies
Each morning as buses pull up to Alexander Mackenzie Secondary School, staff at the Sarnia, Ont., high school are ready with smiles to provide a welcoming home away from home for students.
“Our students come from different towns and villages all around Lambton County. Once they’re inside our doors, they rely on us for support,” says Jim Jordan, a co-operative education teacher-monitor at the vocational-technical school, which serves about 500 students in Grades 9 to 12.
Many take specialized education programs, including welding. And many share an Aboriginal background, traveling each day from the Aamjiwnaang, Walpole Island, and Kettle and Stony Point First Nations.
To make students feel at home, the school serves a free breakfast program – and has also transformed a portable classroom into a First Nations Resource Room. Here, surrounded by tables, couches and Aboriginal art, students visit with friends, receive help with homework or learn from Aboriginal mentors.
“It’s a place to gather or get help. The students just love the room,” says Laura Smith-McKelvie, the principal at Alexander Mackenzie Secondary School.
Helping to support the room and the breakfast program is a close relationship between the school and Enbridge Pipelines – itself part of a greater Lambton Kent District School Board initiative, called Partners Active in Resource Sharing (PAIRS), that connects high schools with local companies.
“It’s about mutual support between two community members — our school and Enbridge,” says Jordan.
Enbridge and Alexander Mackenzie have been PAIRS partners ever since, with the company contributing $5,000 annually to the school.
The school has used PAIRS funding to buy furniture and Wi-Fi to refurbish the resource room. The company has donated gently used computers, and purchased a SMART Table for students. Enbridge has also donated season’s tickets to Sarnia Sting junior hockey games to the school, which uses the ducats as incentive for positive behavior.
Enbridge has also sponsored an annual Christmas dinner for students and their families, and the school uses Enbridge funding to help cover the costs of transporting students to Aboriginal cultural events or co-operative job placements in the region.
“Just about any special thing going on the school, we’ve used Enbridge money to help support it,” says Smith-McKelvie.
Today, the school and Enbridge are looking at further opportunities to collaborate. In early April, Hall and Zoe Rezac, Enbridge Pipelines’ Aboriginal community investment and training advisor, officially renewed this partnership for another three years during a celebration event at the school, handing over two cheques – $5,000 for PAIRS and $8,000 to refurbish the school’s greenhouse.
“It’s an honor for Enbridge to support the PAIRS partnership with the school, because the programs and resources not only keep kids engaged in school, but allow them to excel,” says Rezac.
