OACS News Service

A Belleville Christian School student learns about retail, offers community service during a week-long educational initiative at Quinte Mall.
Belleville Christian School students offer community service to mall merchants
Merchants blessed, impressed by student character
Wednesday February 10, 2010 -- Michelle Strutzenberger
This week Belleville Christian School Grade 7 and 8 students can be seen at various boutiques in the Quinte Mall sweeping, dusting, unloading merchandise and assembling equipment.

The activity is part of a project launched eight years ago by the school to provide students with an opportunity to perform some form of community service as well as learn about money management.

Each Grade 7/8 student is paired up with a Quinte Mall merchant with whom the school has cultivated a relationship.

For one whole week the students spend a couple hours a day with the merchants observing what retail business is all about and helping in any way the merchants see fit.

Throughout the week students also attend class at the mall, where they are engaged in learning about budgeting, mutual funds, stewardship and other money-management topics.

This year, the event has garnered media attention, with the Belleville Intelligencer, Community Press and the CKWS television station in Kingston, planning to cover the activity.

Principal Jennifer Richmond says it’s exciting to see the students step out into an unfamiliar setting and have an opportunity to make an impact on people they don’t regularly interact with on such a level.

“It’s a chance for them to stand and let their character and their faith speak,” says Richmond.

She adds it’s particularly thrilling to learn that the students do in fact leave an impression on the merchants, noting when she approached the merchants to reschedule the activity many of them remembered the students.

“They expressed how much they appreciated the students, how they were blessed by the students and how they were impressed by our students.”

Some students have received summer job offers after completing a placement.

Richmond says she believes it’s the character of the students that leaves such an imprint.

“The merchants don’t see the faith (of the students). They’re young, they’re not really out there with their faith. But their character is what speaks volumes to these folks.”

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