All but eight Creston and Crawford Bay Grade 7 students took part in the annual survivor day held at Lister Park on June 20.
“This year was the most challenging due to weather conditions, yet not a single complaint was heard,” said Adam Robertson Elementary School principal Rod Giles, who has organized the event with School District No. 8 (Kootenay Lake) chair Mel Joy for 11 years. “All students gave their best, many different students had an opportunity to either lead or provide the expertise, their muscle or just to participate as a team member.”
Students took part in 10 challenges, each designed to make students work together, think and provide opportunities for different students to emerge as leaders. They included races to fill two buckets with holes in them with water, get the entire team over a 10-foot wall and have the team climb on each other to place a ribbon up a pole.
In another series, under the guidance of seeing members, two blindfolded students took the wheels off a bike, two more blindfolded put them back, and then two more blindfolded students took turns riding the bike on a course.
Lots of hardy volunteers manned the stations throughout the day and the weather, and the Creston Family of Schools plans to continue working together to share expertise and resources.
“The idea behind the day is that we know these students will all be together now until the end of their high school career at [Prince Charles Secondary School] and we wanted to give them an opportunity to work together and get to know each other a bit,” said Giles.