Raising Sights on Raising money

by SUSAN SCHWARTZ,The Gazette

From the window of his office in Côte des Neiges, dentist Allan Coopersmith can see clearly the Ste. Justine Hospital for children.

When he learned that accidents account for far more children's hospital admissions and deaths than illness and that most are preventable, he vowed to try to find a way of keeping children safe - and of helping them when they got hurt.

He developed a poster board game that deals with elements of safety awareness, a game loosely based on Snakes and Ladders, with messages like "Always wear a safety belt in the car" and "Never go with strangers". And he helped design a pocket-sized first-aid kit containing sterile gauze, adhesive strips and an antiseptic wipe. He's hoping that this "Ouch Pack", as the kit is called, catches on as a school fundraiser.

As a dentist, Coopersmith has a real problem with the widespread use of chocolate bars as fundraisers in children's schools, scout dens and hockey teams. There's the obvious -that chocolate is bad for your teeth. Coopersmith is also concerned that some of the chocolate sold to us by our neighbours, colleagues at work and children in parking lots contain peanut products, even though they're not listed among the ingredients.

And there's the fact that he objects to kids selling things door to door. He's not alone. Growing numbers of schools m the Montreal area are coming up with novel fundraising projects intended to finance school and community-based programs without chocolate bars and without sending children door-to-door. These range from country fairs to line-dancing events to catalogue shopping.

GOVERNMENT CUTS

Fundraising is much more important in schools these days as government funding is continually cut and money raised by some home and school associations is spent on basics such as books, workbooks and reference material.

Money raised goes generally to provide school programs and activities that make things better for everyone, said Donna Sauriol, executive secretary of the Quebec Federation of Home and School Associations, from improved libraries to a music teacher's salary to new computer software to staff in a resource room.

•Willingdon School in Notre Dame de Grace has never used chocolate bars as a fundraiser. "We don't want the kids to go door-to-door selling." said Anne Williams, president of the home and school group at Willingdon, which has about 540 students. The group is responsible for raising $18,000 for a student resource centre. A citrus sale in the fall brings in about $3,500; a monthly pizza lunch brings in about $5,000 a year; a bake sale brought in more than $1,000.

•At Riverview School in Verdun, many of the 450 students brought in pennies to finance the air fare of a little girl from Chernobyl so she could spend the summer here. They raised more than $1,000. "The kids feel so proud " said principal Judy Simpson. Anya, who stays with Riverview teacher Maria Fantin, win be coming again this summer.

• Some home end school associations have produced cookbooks. Meadowbrook School in Lachine produced Sweet Things Only. Edinburgh School in Montreal West last year featured contributions from 150 families in Edinburgh's incredible Edibles. The project netted close to $1,000.

Fundraising gets creative

Spring fairs, frozen yogurt sales are alternatives to selling chocolate

Edinburgh, which boasts the highest membership in the Quebec Home and School Association Federation in a school in which membership is not compulsory (83 percent), also holds such fundraisers as a craft fair, the Grade 6 play, a science fair, book fair, pizza day and frozen yogurt sales. "Once a month we sell frozen yogurt as a fundraiser. It 'healthy and the kids love it", said home and school president Jennifer Kirsh. We don't do chocolate. We don t believe in sending the kids door to door."

• A videocassette recorder for the French department, a CD-ROM of the Encyclopedia Britannica and a class set of novels were among items bought with proceeds from a catalogue shopping fundraiser organized by the Beaconsfield High School home and school association. And last year, they held an outdoor spring fair featuring a barbeque and a car wash at which the School band played Dixieland and Broadway tunes: the band was trying to raise money for new instruments .The home economics teacher helped with the barbecue and, with some of the proceeds from the fair, the home and school group bought a stove for the home EC department.

Some things, though, can't be measured in dollars and cents About 1,000 people turned out at the fair and it was a way of bringing the whole community together," said Janice Saba, immediate past president of the Beconsfield home and school group.

To date, several schools in the Montreal area and one in Toronto have ordered the Ouch Pack as a fundraiser. It's being assembled and packaged in a Montreal work shop for people with intellectual disabilities in bags of 24. Coopersmith suggests that a family keep four - one for glove compartment, schoolbag, purse and sport bag - and encourage five other families to do the same.

The Ouch Pack costs what the chocolate cost: $1 to the organization that buys them and then sells them for $2 The plan is for a copy of the poster board game, Play Safe and Win, to be made available to every child in every school or club that uses the Ouch Pack  as a fundraiser.

+ For information about the Ouch Pack, contact Dr. Allan Coopersmith at 731-3308; email: info@ouchpack.com

'Inventive' fundraising with an educational twist

Accidents account for more child deaths and hospitalizations
than any other illness, but 90 percent are preventable.

by Marlene Eisner

No one has to tell parents how important fundraising is to their child's school with so many cutbacks, money raised outside the school goes to fund many things, from field trips and guest speakers to textbooks and computers.

Whether it's chocolate bars and calendars, or bazaars bake sales and boxes of fruit most schools have tried them all. Seven local professionals claim to have come up with a new idea schools will love.

This fundraiser, they say makes money, will not clean out the pocketbook, and - as a real bonus- is useful and educational. The program focuses on the sale of mint first aid kits called The Ouch Pack a soft packaged one boo-boo fix that can be carried anywhere - a purse fanny-pack or back pocket. Each red and gold pack contains an antiseptic wipe, one gauze pad and three adhesive strips. On the back are simple instructions, in French and English, and pictograms, so that a child as young as six can understand.

"I, along with a number of other professionals, have developed this combination fund-raiser and safety-awareness program designed especially for elementary school children," says Dr. Allan Coopersmith, a Montreal dentist and one of a group of seven who developed the concept. "The idea is that many injuries these days occur outside while biking or rollerblading, often it's a long scrape which is dirty, and there is nothing outside to clean it with the Ouch Pack, the child or parent can clean the wound and then cover it up' he said. Part of the inspiration for the idea stemmed from his unhappiness with schools using chocolate bars as fundraisers

'We all have kids and we were all tired of chocolate bars. Many schools offer them because it's attractive and successful but the message we send to our children, that it is all right to sell a product even though it is potentially harmful to you, or not nutritious, but makes money, is a double-standard message".

The increasing number of children facing potentially life-threatening nut allergies was also a concern. "I am very sensitive to this allergy-thing. I have a lot of close friends whose children have nut allergies," he said.

Recently the Canadian Food inspection Agency issued an allergy-alert warning on certain brands of milk chocolate bars sold door-to-door as fundraisers that were found to contain peanut ingredients not declared on the label.

'God forbid a kid takes a bite out of a chocolate and gets a reaction. There is a moral and ethical liability there,' he says.

But for Dr. Coopersmith, it is not just about chocolates. The fundraising idea he and his colleagues have developed over the past year-and-a-half is both low-cost and useful for every-one. Schools purchase the tiny packets for a $1 each and resell them for $2. Parents are given a 'bulk' package of 24 Ouch Packs to resell to either their friends or family. As part of the program. every child, whether they actively participate in selling or not receives a free poster sized safety-awareness game called "Play Safe and Win" designed in a 'Snakes & Ladders' fashion, where players roll a die to move up the ladders or down the chutes, the goal is to reach the "Play safe and Win" square first. Along the way are safety tips covering areas such as street-crossing safety, fire safety, swimming and bicycle safety.

Dr. Coopersmith, 43 and a father of three, is no stranger to developing educational toys for children. In 1987, he developed a game called After School and in 1993 another called Tooth or Consequences.

For more information on this fundraising program please fax Dr. Coopersmith at (514) 735-6710 or by e-mail info@ouchpack.com

Canadian Food Inspection Agency      Agence canadienne d'inspection des aliments

Warning

for immediate release

ALLERGY ALERT - PRESENCE OF UNDECLARED PEANUT INGREDIENTS IN "ALYAN PRODUCTS", "DISTRIBUTION CHOCOJEUNE" AND "DISTRIBUTIONS CHOCO-LAIT" BRANDS OF MILK CHOCOLATES WITH ALMONDS

OTTAWA, OCT. 31, 1997 - The Canadian Food inspection Agency is warning consumers with peanut allergies about milk chocolate products with almonds sold under the brand names Produits ALYAN products, in 70 gram and 100 gram packages, "Distribution Chocojeune" and "Distributions Choco-lait", both in 100 gram size only.

A sample of "Produits ALYAN" product has been found to contain peanut ingredients which are not declared on the label. The remaining two products are from the same source.

The products are distributed as part of a fundraising campaign, door to-door and in shopping malls in the province of Quebec by Produits ALYAN Products of Saint-Romuald, Quebec, Distribution Chocojeune of Loretteville, Quebec, and Distributions Choco-lait of Saint-Boniface, Quebec. There are no UPC codes on these products.

Consumption of these milk chocolate with almonds products is of concern only for those who are allergic to peanuts. There have been no reported illnesses associated with these products.

The distributors are voluntarily recalling their products from the market place. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is monitoring the recall.

-30-

For more information, please contact:
Rejean Fiset, Food Division
Canadian Food Inspection Agency
(613) 226-2342, ext 4298
Pager: (613) 760-0570

FROM: J.P. Hanchay
CHIEF, FOOD INSPECTION
QUEBEC REGION
514-646-1363 EXT 234