After several months of exchanging formal letters with their pen pals, Nesika and Alexis Creek elementary students met face to face this month.
Grade 4/5 Nesika students and intermediate Alexis Creek students began exchanging letters last October, facilitated by Marilyn Livingston and Margaret Anne Enders with the Canadian Mental Health Association Multiculturalism Program.
Then on Jan. 14 Alexis Creek principal Shane Sliziak and teacher Jeremy Parkin hosted the pen pals’ first face to face meetings at Alexis Creek school.
Lacey Nasuszny’s students at Nesika boarded a bus and headed west.
“The excitement elevated as many of the students had not been over the Sheep Creek Bridge,” Livingston says. “One very proud student made sure everyone saw his grandmother’s home in Alexis Creek.”
She says the pen pals started their visit with a fun game of three-legged races that soon warmed the room up.
Tl’etinqox-T’in Elders Angie Stump and Nelly Servant, as well as community member Allison Charleyboy facilitated bead crafts and the students had a hands-on lesson on making bannock.
The Elders, community members, teachers and students shared a delicious lunch of Indian Tacos.
The cultural exchange concluded with the Elders and community members singing and drumming and the students doing a friendship dance.
The drum was made by students at Alexis Creek School, including a pen pal participant David Hance who was responsible for scraping the hide.
Through formalized pen pal activities students from both schools were encouraged to form relationships.
“In a day and age of social media a hand- written letter is a special occasion,” Livingston says. “Our hope is when youth have these experiences early in life, they are more likely to develop an understanding and respect for diversity.”
She says it is also hoped that the exchange will help to form the foundations for respect and friendship when rural students attend secondary schools in Williams Lake with their urban counterparts.