The Prince Albert Catholic School Division takes part each year in the Toonies for Tuition campaign. At the board’s regular meeting on Monday, June 15 they were provided with an update on the fundraiser.
The initiative was spearheaded in Canada by the board’s vice chair Albert Provost and began in 2011.
“He was one of the initial champions of Toonies for Tuition,” director of education Lorel Trumier said.
“We take publicly funded Catholic education very serious and we know that some provinces do not have the ability to do that so for that reason, Catholic education is that important that we feel that if there is anything we can do to support other families in other provinces that we do it.”
Annually the board approves the fundraiser. Many families in Canada need to pay tuition to attend Catholic schools. The CCSTA through the Toonies for Tuition Endowment Fund alleviates the burden on these families who live in provinces where Catholic education has limited or no public funding.
Every Catholic school division fundraised for the initiative in 2020 and in the past have helped bring the Catholic education experience to students who may not have this opportunity.
The President of the Saskatchewan Catholic School Board Association Delmar Wagner contacted the division after the Annual General Meeting of the organization to advise the Prince Albert Catholic has fundraised the highest dollar amount per student in Saskatchewan.
“We are not asking for a large donation from our families or our schools we are asking for a Toonie per student and we try to find creative ways to at least raise awareness and maybe one project in a school or several smaller projects, you might have a little popcorn sale for three weeks in a row and say we are trying to raise money for Toonie for Tuition,” she explained.
Each year a trophy is presented for the highest provincial and highest school board/division winner.
In Prince Albert the total funds raised were $2,250 with Ecole St. Anne raising the highest dollar amount with $1,200.
This year’s provincial winner was Saskatchewan and the winner of the school board/division trophy was Kenora Catholic Division in Ontario. Prince Albert Catholic previously won the trophy from 2011 to 2017. The province of Saskatchewan also won the provincial trophy from 2011 to 2017.
“Prince Albert Catholic Schools do a very good job to get that toonie per student so we have a very high ratio of Toonies per capita,” Trumier said.
