North End Grad Walk 2022
Don’t you think we should be celebrating all the grads that make it to graduation in our neighbourhoods? What opportunities do we have as residents to tell the kids and students and learners in our community that we are proud of their educational achievements? If you said yes to these questions, you probable agree with the ideas and motivation behind the North End Grad Walk!
Planting Seeds of Celebration
It was years ago, I was scrolling mindlessly on social media and came across a meme that had obviously been shared and screen shotted so many times it was kind of hard to read. This wasn’t a regular meme, it simply said that each year the residents of a town would parade graduates down the main road and everyone would celebrate them. Simple. But inspiring. The seed was planted. Fast forward a few years, we are now going into our 3rd grad season in a row where COVID19 has seriously prevented these grads from celebrating and being celebrated for what they’ve accomplished in graduating. We watched the 2020 and 2021 graduates be asked to socially distance or adjust their festivities, we even saw many of those celebrations cancelled. Those grads need to know that we didn’t forget about them and they need to know that our whole neighbourood loves them and is proud of them.
The 1st Annual North End Grad Walk
The North End Grad Walk of 2022 invited graduates from St John’s, RB Russell, Children of the Earth and Urban Circle to come together and be gifted with flowers, be paraded down Salter Street, make memories, take photos and eat a small meal together. We welcomed support from the Winnipeg School Division, the City of Winnipeg, the Winnipeg Police, community organizations Fearless R2W and North End Community Renewal Corporation and countless volunteers and helpers. This true community effort was organized in a short period of time because everyone believed in the vision and wanted to celebrate these grads. In the end we had about 50 grads come out and just as many community members. IT was a humble first event, but the exciting thing is all the schools were passionate and excited about making this an annual event and wanted to already start thinking about what we could do next year! For the administration folks and event organizers out there, this all happened in a period of 9 days and within a budget of approximately $1200 dollars.
CBC, CTV and the Winnipeg School Division all wrote articles about our work and if you want to check them out you can click on the buttons below:
If you want to be involved please reach out to me or send an email to northendgradwalk@gmail.com!
