A young student at a Calgary school has been working alongside his classmates to collect sleeping bags and show the city’s homeless population that they are loved this holiday season.
When Grade 3 student Tate Parker lived in B.C., he was surprised when he saw the living conditions of many of the homeless people there and decided to something about it.
“I said to my dad what are those guys, and he said they're homeless people, and then I wanted to help them,” Tate said.
Tate’s father Neil said that the scene really struck a chord with him.
“Everything [was] damp. Tate struggled with it. He couldn’t understand why everything was wet and disheveled.”
On the walk home, that’s when Tate said that he wanted to buy some sleeping bags, so he went home and told his mother about it who went and posted an ad on a small community website.
The idea was shared on social media and then really took off.
“Local news organizations picked it up and sort of really gained steam quickly,” Neil says.
In the first year, Tate managed to gather 51 sleeping bags to donate to the tent city in Victoria. Now, this year in Calgary, he is working with his fellow students at Earl Grey School to gather sleeping bags to donate to The Mustard Seed.
“The plan is on the 21st, we’ll be at The Mustard Seed handing out sleeping bags,” Neil said.
Magdalena Nasr, Tate’s teacher, said that she first heard about the young boy’s mission when she first met him in September.
“He told me a little story about himself and I was just completely taken by surprise that someone so young had such empathy for the homeless.”
She says she uses the campaign as a teachable moment for her other students, who have all gotten onboard with the idea.
“Citizenship is really important in all schools, all classrooms and we want to build good citizens that help the community,” she says. “These are potential leaders. These students here are our future and we have to let everybody know that it starts very young and if we all work together, we can really make a difference.”
There is no specific number of sleeping bags that Tate and his classemates are aiming to collect, but it would be amazing if they got 100 or more.
“The need is great and, honestly, even one sleeping bag is helpful,” Neil says.
Neil says his son has no problem coming into contact with the homeless in order to deliver the donated sleeping bags and feels that that is an important lesson for everyone to learn.
“You don’t need to fear homeless people. They’re just people. I think Tate, as a child, doesn’t have this baggage; this fear.”
You can learn more about Tate’s sleeping bag campaign on his Facebook page.
(With files from Kevin Fleming)
