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MRSS students win $5,000 donation to charity

Nationwide competition teaches youth the fundamentals of philanthropy.
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MRSS students Clara Killerich-Hubner

Five Maple Ridge secondary students will be donating $5,000 to charity after winning a nationwide competition teaching youth the fundamentals of philanthropy.

Maya Spindel-Wood, Cassandra Joyce, Zaria Solk, Clara Killerich-Hubner, and Ava Morant won the donation after submitting a presentation to the Youth and Philanthropy Initiative (YPI) on their charity of choice: Pacific Riding for Developing Abilities in Langley, BC.

YPI, founded in 2002 and sponsored by the Toskan Casale Foundation, gives out $500,000 annually to teens across Canada in order to give them the chance to play a direct role in making a financial grant to a local, grassroots service organization in their own community.

High school students in Planning 10 form groups and pick an organization they want to support. They connect with and do research on the organization and create a presentation for their class with each class selecting the best presentation. Then they make their pitch in front of a panel of judges made up of school faculty and the previous years winners.

The winning group receives the $5,000 for their charity.

The final YPI presentations were held on Nov. 27, 2015.

This year over 22,000 secondary schools across Canada took part in the program.

The MRSS students will be using the money they won to purchase a ‘platinum horse sponsorship,’ covering the expenses of a horse for a year.

On Friday they met their sponsored horse, Grover.