Success is as sweet as sorbet for Grade 6 students at Dorval school

Grade six students at Ecole Gentilly in Dorval are looking forward to the end of the school year, for a variety of obvious reasons, but also because the fundraising project they've been working on is pretty sweet.

The sweet sound of success can be found in the whirring noise of four sorbet-making machines in the school near the music room. This area is sorbet-central every Thursday when the students use frozen fruit to create cups of chilly goodness for any customer with a toonie.

Benjamin, a grade four student, lapped up a cup of tutti-fruity-flavoured sorbet.

“It's good and it supports the sixth graders," he said. It's heartening for the hardworking students who sell their wares as fast as they make them to see the line-up down the hall. Flavours like watermelon and dragon fruit are popular but another student Samantha said her favourite is “strawberry-mint!"

Grade six teacher Ann LeBrasseur spear-headed this initiative and wanted a healthy treat her students could make together. Her students prepare the fruit, set up their kiosk and balance the books. They've already collected a whopping $23,000.

The money is earmarked for a graduation trip to Tadoussac for all 80 students before they move on to high school. Dorval Mayor Marc Doret came to see the enterprise and was impressed.

“When the community is involved in any kind of project big or small it just makes the community stronger," he said.

Crossing guard Jules Bourcier is a regular client. "Every Thursday, I have my sorbet," she said with a laugh.

The parent of one student working on the project, Claudia Priolo, says it's been a good lesson for the children.

“My daughter is in grade six and we try to teach her the value of money and she'd be like 'oh, we made this' and I'd be like who paid for the cups, who paid for the fruits who paid for the machine, so slowly the kids got to learn, it wasn't all profit," she said.

On June 3, which happens to be Young Entrepreneurs Day across Quebec, students from Ecole Gentilly will be selling their sorbet in front of Non Solo Pane Bakery at 455 Bord-du-Lac-Lakeshore in Dorval.

One last push before they finish their term and then go on a trip–because they made it happen.