Students of the French language catholic school in Dryden are trying to bring some joy to the community during a difficult time.
Claudine Savage is the Administrator of École catholique de l’Enfant-Jésus and says they wanted to create a fun service project to cheer people up.
“People have been pretty good through this pandemic, but they are wearing out. You can see the edges fraying. There’s no hugs. There’s no dinners or friendly get togethers. This can easily bring people down. So, to create community cheer and being inspired by a similar project in southern Ontario, we chose to paint bird houses that would be gifted to the people of Dryden.” says Savage.
Each birdhouse has been individually designed by a student and painted with cheerful colors. As well, each birdhouse comes with a tag that contains a bilingual word cloud of inspirational words on one side and a special message to its future owner on the other.
Savage says, “The twist to this project is that the birdhouses will be distributed around the city in random places where they will be purposely left to be found. As I mentioned, the tag on the birdhouse contains inspirational words on one side as well as a message on the other that urges the finder to take the birdhouse home and share photos of them and their new birdhouse via our email address eej@csdcab.on.ca.”
There are a total of 14 birdhouses that will be placed randomly but strategically throughout the community in high traffic areas over the next couple of days.
Savage notes, “Another bonus to our project is providing shelter to cavity-nesting species, which for the most part eat insects and berries instead of seed. Birdhouses can add to backyard diversity because they draw different kinds of birds and they provide a safe place for birds to build their nests, protected from the elements and predators.
She says the students loved taking part in this activity and were excited to help cheer people up and she hopes the birdhouse project will encourage others to come up with their own community cheer initiative.
Savage adds, “The school would like to thank Vice Versa that helped to fund the project for the students. As well as allowing the purchase of the materials, monies will also be spent on student birdwatching kits along with books on birds. This will encourage the children to learn about their feathered neighbours around the school and their home.”
