Save Our Souls Campaign: Impacting A.R. Macneill Secondary

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Save Our Souls

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The save our souls campaign is an initiative started by five Simon Fraser University students: Kiran Dhinsa, Harinder Dhinsa, Bruce Hu, Clara Lam, and Rolando Fuentes Ruiz.  Together they partnered with the covenant house, a Vancouver based group helping at risk youth, to raise awareness of youth homelessness in BC and in Canada.  They set their sights on local high schools as they would take the greatest effect; in due time A. R. Macneill Secondary School, with the efforts of Carol Adams, agreed to take on the Save Our Souls initiative within their school.

Presentations of a study conducted by the RCMP 2 years ago were given to each home room to show the depth of the issue.  These included the following:

• Total Runaway Youth in BC: 13, 390 and increasing
  
  
• Total Runaway in Canada: 60, 582
  
  
• 22% of Runaway Youth are from BC (only 13% of total population)
  
  
• Between 20-80 people drop by everyday at the covenant house
  
  
• Youth Served Last Fiscal Year by The Covenant House: 1, 989

The Save Our Souls campaign is now fully underway in this school and are currently collecting articles of clothing, everyday items, and funds to help these youth that are at risk.  The current response of the students has been spectacular and the momentum is going to increase until the final day of collection on November 20th when there will be a final presentation at the school to both thank the students for their contributions and to hand over donations to the covenant house.