Children at Quebec school find unique way to celebrate Valentine's Day

Forget flowers and chocolate. This Valentine’s Day, a group of Quebec children found their own way to celebrate love, across a very long distance.

Kids at Farnham Elementary School, in the Eastern Townships, have been learning about a school in Kenya—and they heard that it was hit hard hard by COVID-19 in a way theirs wasn’t.

“A lot of the families took a really big hit economically when COVID hit,” said Farnham principal Cathy Canzani.

“Even the teacher himself—his name is Stephen Mora—when the schools shut down, he actually lost his job for about eight months, and he literally had to go rent fields so that he could go to the market and sell his crops.”

The students, too, lost a lot, Canzani said. Many of their families could no longer afford to send their children to school, which costs $230 per year.

“For us, it isn't a huge amount of money,” she said. “And I just felt like our school needed a bigger cause, we needed something to give back, to take the focus off us and what we're going through.”

Together, teachers and students came up with a plan: for each class to hold its own fundraiser

One class made their own Christmas cards to sell. “I think the teacher thought she would sell a couple of cards—well, the orders kept coming in and coming in and coming in,” said Canzani. They raised more than $400.

A Grade One class made chocolate lollipops for Valentine’s Day, and the same story unfolded—in two weeks, they sold nearly 400 of them.

The whole school got into the spirit of the project, with one five-year-old, Naia, showing up one day to donate the contents of her piggy bank.

“I like helping people,” she told CTV News.

Overall, the school raised $2,300, enough to send 10 kids back to their school in Kenya. And one last fundraiser is yet to come, on the 17th, Canzani said.

But it wasn’t just the children in Kenya who benefited, said teacher Samantha Gagnon.

“I'm proud that my students understand that it's for something greater than us,” she said.

“They understand the fact that it's not just making chocolate for fun—we're really helping other children go back to school and they understand that's very important.”

One Grade Six student said that’s what he got out of the holiday.

“I encourage people to do that, to help other people,” said Josef Rochat. “Just don't think [only] about you. Think about other people also.”