Teacher a big hero

Homegrown hero

The next time your son or daughter comes home from school, ask them how well they know their teacher.

On a recent open house at our son’s school, Chute Lake Elementary, we not only fell in love with his teacher and how hard he worked, but couldn’t believe the effort and care that Mr. Achambault put into his work.

From his ability to remember detail about each of the kids in his class, to the collection of building and learning toys that his parents saved from his childhood and that are now made available in the classroom, this is one ordinary hero that shows up every day to make a difference in the lives of impressionable little people.

We place our kids in the care and trust of our schools for over 1,000 hours a year and its wonderful to learn of such a caring teacher.  

I think most of us can agree that teachers in our schools have a significant influence in helping shape our kids into the citizens we want them to be and to that we thank you teachers, for the joys, the tears, the breakthroughs and the extra miles, you know who you are, thank you from parents everywhere.

College kids doing it right

College kids often get a bad rap. I have a real time example of local Okanagan College students doing it right. 

On Jan.25, the Okanagan College chapter of ENACTUS, a community of student, academic and business leaders committed to using the power of entrepreneurial action to transform lives and shape a better more sustainable world helped the 100 Kids Who Care Kelowna chapter.

They put on a fun, educational and impactful charity event. They not only discussed what it meant to be a leader, what community meant to them, but helped the kids in raising $1,000 for charity.

The kids narrowed down their nominations to the top three:

• KGH Foundation’s  Joanna’s House
• World Wildlife Fund: Living Planet initiative
• The Central Okanagan United Way’s Child Safety Initiative 

The $1,000, which came from the kids, Odlum Brown, a campaign sponsor in the ICan app, and matching funds from the Reston James Deacon: A Living Legacy Fund, was donated to the three charities.

Make a call to save the planet

We came across one of the coolest products last week called Pela, an eco-friendly cell phone case. 

As you would expect, the case has amazing protection from drops and scratches. But it's also BPA-free, child-safe and get this, 100 per cent compostable case and plastic free packaging. The Pela team even makes  donations  to environmental initiatives from each sale.

Not only is this a made-in-Canada story, the founder is from Saskatoon and the product is made with Saskatchewan flax straw, but we hear that Pela was recently in town meeting with the UBC Okanagan lab to talk bio-polymer research and innovation. 

Sounds like another win for Silicon Valley North here in the Okanagan.

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This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.