Salvation Army associate pastor Michael Collins has no time for people who gripe about “kids today.”
One of the things he points to to shut them up is a group of students from Burnaby North Secondary that he calls “the finest group of kids ever put together in the history of the planet.”
Called Small Steps, the volunteer club has helped Collins’s Cariboo Hill church prepare food for the homeless year-round for three years.
From now until Christmas Eve, the group will also supply volunteers for the church’s kettle campaign.
“These kids are awesome,” Collins said.
Small Steps was started in 2011 by Burnaby North student Sydney Juzenas as a club that would focus on hands-on activities rather than fundraising to help those in need.
“The club was called Small Steps since the students are taking small steps to make our community a better place,” current executive Jessica Jordan Su said.
The group has four executives (Su, Vicky Wang, Pamela Liu and Grace Lu this year) instead of a president, vice-president and such, and one of the keys to the club’s success, according to Su, is not killing its membership with endless meetings.
Aside from a couple meetings, most of their information is passed on via email and Facebook to a volunteer network now about 180 strong.
Members put in as much or as little volunteer time as they like.
Their main activity has been helping in the Cariboo Hill Sally Ann’s kitchen.
Five to six volunteers spend about three hours every Sunday and Tuesday night, helping the church make 2,000 sandwiches, five five-gallon pots of soup and 10 gallons of hot chocolate for the homeless.
“There are days when, if they didn’t come, the people on the street would be waiting for food that didn’t arrive,” Collins said.
The club’s help with the kettle campaign has been a godsend too.
With a shortage of volunteers, the Sally Ann sometimes has to pay people to work their kettles, something that cuts into the money raised for good causes.
When Cariboo Hill ran short of volunteers, however, Small Steps stepped up.
They’ve taken on the lion’s share of shifts at the Kensington Safeway by Hastings Street and are also helping with the Safeway on Hastings Street by Willingdon Avenue.
“Volunteers are always better,” Collins said. “They want to be there, and these kids, they laugh, they’re having fun, people see them who know them, so they always do very well with their kettles.”
Small Steps volunteers have been looking after the Sally Ann kettles since last Tuesday.
For Grade 10 student Kethy Lin, who was in front of the Kensington Safeway last Wednesday, it’s just one more way to help out.
“If you were ever stuck and down, you would want someone to help you,” she said.
Her partner-in-jingling, Lilyan Jia agreed.
“It’s just good karma, you know,” she said.
The two girls weren’t satisfied just to shake their bells.
To every shopper who passed they also called out “Please donate!”
“It’s kind of weird,” Jia said. “I would always see those people with the bells. I never thought I would be one of those.”
Su, meanwhile, hopes she and her fellow Small Steps volunteers raise more than money at the Christmas kettles this holiday season.
“I’d like to think it brings joy to people, knowing that teenagers and students are actually willing to do these kind of things and are actually happy to be volunteering instead of just lazying around at home,” she said.
The group has certainly won Collins over.
“They’re tireless and they’re joy filled and they’re just delightful kids to have around,” he said. “They have just been a complete surprise blessing to us at the Salvation Army.”
