When a deadly and destructive earthquake struck Nepal on April 25, killing thousands, Diana Gunstone of Squamish knew she had to find a way to connect her son with what was happening in his birthplace.
“Tenzin was born in Nepal,” she said. “We adopted him in 2007.”
Gunstone decided to send Nepalese prayer flags to school with Tenzin, an eight-year-old in Grade 3 at École les Aiglons located within Garibaldi Elementary School.
“We had some prayer flags we picked up in Nepal and I wanted to put some in his bag to take to school,” said Gunstone. “But at first he wasn’t too keen on the idea.”
Eventually he relented, and the flags did more than connect Tenzin and the other students to the tragedy: They inspired a school-wide fundraising initiative.
“He came back at the end of the day and said he had given the flags to the teacher and that now they were going to raise money for Nepal,” she said. “Their class decided on a bottle drive to raise money, and they made posters and went through Garibaldi Elementary to tell the other students and the initiative spread quickly throughout the school community.”
Beginning April 30, with cans and bottles picked up during the schools’ Pitch-in Week efforts at Rose Park, students started earnestly collecting cans and bottles.
“All the proceeds are going to the Nubri/Manalsu region, a remote mountain area devastated by the quake and also the home of Tashi and Nangsal Lama, two Nepalese ladies who are students at Quest University,” Gunstone said. “They’ve also set up a Gofundme.com page to fundraise for their villages.”
On Tuesday, 15 Grade 3 students from École les Aiglons and their teacher, Madame Marie-France Dubois, took Squamish public transit to the bottle depot to sort what they had collected.
“So far they have raised $650,S said Gunstone. But Squamish people can still donate to the initiative by going to the Gofundme.com page or by going to the Squamish Bottle Depot with their bottles and directing their refund to account #260 (École les Aiglons).
For Gunstone, the fundraising drive has done a lot more than just raise money.
“It’s amazing how it brought the school community together,” she said. “But also, now Tenzin has this connection to a place he’s not really seen since he was just 18 months old.”
