"Have you Seen the Drinking Fountain Here?"

"Have you seen the Drinking Fountain Here?"  asks Colin - Kaitlyn Zarzour.  Colin is a Student Trustee with the Durham Catholic District School Board.  I've been invited here by Colin to speak at the monthly student senate meeting he co-chairs at the board office.  We pause my presentation on our Water Campaign right at the point I am talking about drinking fountains in schools.  When else do you get to stop a meeting and run out of the room to check out a drinking fountain? Awesome.  Within minutes I'm introduced by Colin to the Elkay EZH2O bottle filling station just outside the meeting room.  The board office installed the drinking fountain as part of their efforts to reduce the consumption of bottled water. This filling station actually counts the number of plastic bottles diverted from waste management systems through its use.

Colin and the rest of the senate are planning to make Water the broad theme of a board-wide initiative this year.  Creative ideas flow from the students as they brainstorm ways to make this campaign a reality. We at Development and Peace are ready to walk with them!  November 24th will be our annual Student Day for high schools in Durham.  Incidently, it was at this very day some fifteen odd years ago (when D&P was focused on the issue of sweat shops)  that I first became aquainted with Development and Peace as a high school student at St. Mary in Pickering.  Now Colin and the rest of the student senate are carrying the torch and burning bright.