Seneca Trail PS honours teachers who passed away

By Courtney Bachar/The Oshawa Express/LJI Reporter

Staff and students at Seneca Trail Public School have donated more than $2,600 to the Lakeridge Health Cancer Centre in honour of two of their teachers who have passed away.

It all started with four girls with an idea and a passion to want to help.

The money raised came from a fundraiser led by four Grade 8 girls – Jenna, Madison, Hailey, and Madisen – who, in Grade 6 at the time, wanted to do something to honour their teacher, Lisa Ducharme, who had passed away from cancer in 2015.

“It was my first year there,” says Seneca Trail Principal Cristina Cox, adding the school is still fairly new, now only in its seventh year. She says the principal at the time, Michael Bowman, had an “all-star team.”

“Lisa became sick during the second year with brain cancer and she passed away,” says Cox. “It was really hard for a new school just coming together.”

Cox says it was just before Christmas 2017 when the girls approached her and said they had a teacher at the school and they wanted to do something in her honour.

Since 2018, students and staff at the Oshawa school have honoured Ducharme by hosting Ducharme Day, upon which they dress up in colourful scarves and donate $2.

“After our teacher died, we wanted to do something in her memory,” says Jenna. “She wore scarves every day. It was one of her favourite things.”

The four girls also host a bake sale for the entire school.

Then, in 2019, tragedy struck the school community again when they lost their teacher, Kim Clausen, to another form of cancer.

“Any school having any type of loss is tragic, and it’s even more-so when you have a school community that now has gone through two,” says Cox. “It’s hard for the kids to process and you really have to support them through that.”

Last year, before Clausen had passed away, Cox and the girls were invited to experience a tour of the Oshawa cancer centre. Cox says visiting the cancer centre made an abstract concept much more tangible and real for the students.

“A lot of people are affected by cancer, whether they have a family member or friend with it, or they have it themselves,” says Jenna, adding having cancer hit so close to home twice at their school was a wake-up call for her and the other girls that they needed to do something more.

“Going to the hospital and learning about the machinery and equipment used to help these patients was a really good experience.”

Ducharme Day has since been renamed Clausen/Ducharme Day, and for the past two years, along with the regular donation of $2, the girls also host a bake sale for the entire school.

The annual fundraiser always takes place at the end of January, on a date chosen to be on or near Ducharme’s birthday.

“It was a great opportunity to be able to make a difference,” says Jenna, adding that since her and her friends will be graduating this year, she hopes the other students at the school will continue with the initiative.

“It’s been a great experience for the girls. I see how the girls really took this on as something they believed in and really wanted to do to make a difference,” says Cox.

“It’s been a great part of our school community and I know I will continue to support it and nurture it and bring more kids into it,” she continues, adding there’s already been some succession planning and hopes that some of the younger siblings will be interested in joining.

“We want to make it bigger and include more kids,” she says, adding it’s important to help kids foster a sense of leadership and connection to their community.

“They are our future leaders and we need to instill the belief that they can be change agents. If we raise them to be involved in their communities, then they become adults that believe they can make a difference.”