Students Experience a Peace Day Picnic

PeaceQuest volunteers George Biro and Willa Thayer.

PeaceQuest Kingston volunteers George Biro and Willa Thayer.

By Ann Boniferro

Monday, September 21 was a beautiful day for a Peace Picnic!

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To celebrate the UN International Day of Peace, PeaceQuest invited community members to bring their lunches to City Park to enjoy a time of fellowship under the canopy of the Peace tree – a 100 year old oak, dedicated in 2013. A very brief program featured the reading of a few quotations about peace followed by a minute of silence and a peace song led by Wendy Luella Perkins. Then it was time to sit on the blankets and have lunch.Students from nearby schools walked to the park to join in the fun. Regiopolis-Notre Dame Catholic High School qualified as a PeaceQuest school last year. Their principal, vice-principal, and chaplaincy leader accompanied students and teachers from the Life Skills program and grade 12 religion class to the picnic.

 

In our quest for peace we need to..."Help stop hunger."

In our quest for peace we need to…”Help stop hunger.”

For the forty five Ecole Catholique Cathedrale students from grades 6, 7, & 8, this was a first introduction to PeaceQuest. Some completed the White Square activity (in English and in French) while others wrote peace messages to hang on branches. Their teachers are looking forward to incorporating peace education in their programs so that they, too, can become a PeaceQuest school.

 

Other activities took place in schools across the region, including making peace banners and peace pinwheels, as children and youth work to create a culture of peace in their communities. We look forward to seeing their work and we invite your classroom to become a part of PeaceQuest Schools!