Students and staff at Roseau Valley School (RVS) in Dominion City handed out free coffee, donuts and smiles this past Monday through an event they called "Love My Community".

Jenn Collette, Vice Principal at RVS, says their students came up with the idea.

“It started as actually as a day called "Love Dominion City Day". A group of kids said we should spread kindness. We did that, [which was] probably about three years back,” says Collette. “It was wonderful! We had a live band. This [was]

Another connected activity saw students send ‘cards of kindness’ to valued people in their lives. Similar cards were provided to seniors in the community. pre-COVID times, right? It's really kind of evolved over the years to be [more] inclusive, because we are a school that serves quite a few students from different communities, so we decided to rename the day to Love My Community.”

By Collette’s count, they served 1800 Timbits and over 120 cups of coffee. Lillian Fisher, the RVS Community Connector, set up a coffee and smile cookie table in downtown Dominion City, and saw lots of visitors there.

The event incorporated a cross-community art project in which students painted tiles to illustrate why they love their community.

“What is going to happen with those is we're hoping to make a mural for each community, because in our school some [students] picked Roseau River. We have students who live in Emerson. So we're going to collect those tiles, and then make one for each community that they'll hang somewhere in their community.”

Collette says she was struck how the tile art revealed the diversity at RVS, with students coming from Emerson, Woodmore, Dominion City, Roseau River Anishinaabe First Nation, Arnaud and Tolstoi.

One change for this year’s event was incorporating a larger community component, made possible by local businesses.

“Access Credit union sponsored the event. They provided $1,500 which helped include so many other people, not just buying supplies for our schools, [but] involving way more people in the community around us. Tim Hortons in Morris donated 2,000 Timbits and probably, I don't know, over 200 cups of coffee for sure. They were saying too, our mandate is we want people to celebrate community, that's a really important thing for us. It wasn't hard to get people involved.”

Another connected activity saw students send ‘cards of kindness’ to valued people in their lives. Similar cards were provided to seniors in the community.

Collette says Emerson School and Ginew School were also involved in this annual exercise that aims to show students they can be leaders in their classroom and community. It also allowed staff the opportunity to reconnect with parents.

“Being able to put a smile on people’s faces was an awesome feeling!", she added.

Students also painted rocks with kind and encouraging words, to be placed throughout their communities.