On Monday morning, a tree in Officer’s Square was adorned with paper hands and mittens. The paper hands raise awareness about child poverty, and the mittens are free for anyone to take. This tree is part of an initiative to raise one million mittens for children across New Brunswick, and has spread out to other towns in the province like Bathurst and Miramichi. It’s even spreading across the Maritimes, reaching PEI.
Facebook and Twitter pages have been created to garner online support. All over campus, paper hands with facts on child poverty, like the one pictured above, can be seen everywhere. Boxes to donate mittens and gloves are discretely placed across STU.
This is big, and it’s only going to get bigger! With the support of the local YMCA, Mayor Brad Woodside and the Fredericton RCMP, plus the community as a whole, everyone’s spreading the warmth.
The overarching goal of the project is to remind everyone that raising children is a community effort, and not just a parent responsibility. Jordie Hovie, a third-year Criminology major, points out that this initiative and the projects that have sprung up from it won’t end child poverty.
The focus, he says is, “not to give a handout, but a smile.” Jordie goes on to say that as someone who grew up in a small town, knowing that the project is going to help a little guy whose hands are cold during recess means a lot.
The initiative began in Dr. Susan Reid’s Children and Youth at Risk class. The class has hand-sewed and gathered a total of 1,000 mittens by themselves prior to Monday’s tree decoration. The STUMitts campaign hopes to bring in an additional 1,000 more mittens from each STU residence over a two week period, that will end on Monday, February 24th. The project will continue on until a million – or more! – mittens have been raised.