For this year’s Festival of Trees 2014, three educators, Allison Hughes, Koreen Geres and Belinda Daniels saw an opportunity to bring diverse students together in celebration of peace, understanding and love. Geres and Daniels both teach at Mount Royal Collegiate with two distinct groups: Aboriginal and New Comer immigrant students. Hughes, Geres and Daniels’ intended outcome was breaking down barriers and debunking stereo-typical myths about both populations of students.

Decorations for the tree.

Since the beginning of September, various Saskatoon Public School Division students have been on a learning journey of ‘getting to know one another’ through various fieldtrips, such as Indigenous sage harvesting, touring the exhibit of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women at Wanuskewin Heritage Park, to making learning in a lighter context while making dream-catchers, moccasins and Christmas decorations of turquoise garland. Hughes, Vincent Massey teacher, entered the experience after seeing an opportunity for her pre- high school students to add to the project, and in the process, Vincent Massey students are becoming familiar with the ‘high school’ experience, which maybe scary for some students.

The finished product as on display at the Festival of Trees.

Due to ‘hearing wind’ of what these teachers were doing and the quick thinking of two local business: Quinton Custom Woodworks and Todd Hanson Electric, saw an opportunity to lend a helping hand in covering the costs for materials in decorating a tree for the annual Festival of Trees! All proceeds go to the Saskatoon City Hospital Foundation. In the end it was a Win-win for all, two local business contributing to core neighborhood school Christmas project.